Category: 7. Science

  • Japan researchers find squid dominated ancient Cretaceous period seas

    Japan researchers find squid dominated ancient Cretaceous period seas

    TOKYO – A research team at a Japanese university has found that the world’s oceans during the Cretaceous period, roughly 70 million to 100 million years ago, were dominated by squid.

    In a report published recently in the journal Science by the researchers from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Hokkaido University, evidence suggested that squid far outnumbered ammonites and fish — the opposite of previous assumptions.

    Being soft-bodied creatures, squid rarely fossilized, with typically only their beaks remaining after decomposition.

    The team developed a technique to digitally produce three-dimensional recreations of even the tiniest fossils by repeatedly photographing rock slices just one-hundredth of a millimeter thick.

    Analyzing Cretaceous period rocks found on Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido, the team identified 263 fossils of squid beaks, averaging about 4 mm in length.

    Based on the shapes of the beaks, the team was able to classify the squid into 40 species, some of which were similar to modern squid.

    Observations of rocks from different periods suggest that squid appeared around 100 million years ago and diversified rapidly over the course of around 6 million years.

    It is believed that their population grew so much that it surpassed that of the prosperous ammonites.

    In contrast to the shelled ammonites, their fellow cephalopods, squid are thought to have evolved fast swimming abilities and intelligence that were advantageous for catching food, according to the team.

    Squid established their position in the marine ecosystem earlier than fish and whales, diversified after the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, and have remained a central presence to this day, it said.


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  • Habitable Planet Potential Increases in the Outer Galaxy

    Habitable Planet Potential Increases in the Outer Galaxy

    What can the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), which is a galaxy’s region where complex life is hypothesized to be able to evolve, teach scientists about finding the correct stars that could have habitable planets? This is what a recent study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated a connection between the migration of stars, commonly called stellar migration, and what this could mean for finding habitable planets within our galaxy. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the astrophysical parameters for finding habitable worlds beyond Earth and even life as we know it.

    For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to simulate how stellar migration could influence the location and parameters of the GHZ. The models included scenarios both with and without stellar migration to ascertain the statistical probabilities for terrestrial (rocky) planets forming around stars throughout the galaxy. The researchers also used a chemical evolution model to ascertain the formation and evolution of our galaxy, specifically regarding its thickness.

    In the end, the researchers found that stellar migration influences the formation of habitable planets within the outer regions of the galaxy. This is because stellar migration results in a redistribution of stars throughout the galaxy, with the team estimating a 5 times greater likelihood of stellar migration resulting in stars hosting habitable planets compared to a lack of stellar migration. Additionally, the team found that gas giant planets could influence the formation of terrestrial planets within the inner regions of the galaxy.

    The paper notes in its conclusions, “In this study, we have significantly expanded the exploration of the parameter space defining the Galactic Habitable Zone, compared to previous analyses present in literature. Our findings are particularly relevant in the context of upcoming space missions, such as the ESA [European Space Agency] PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars (PLATO), the ESA Ariel space mission and Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). These missions will deliver unprecedented data on planetary properties, orbital architectures, and atmospheric compositions.”

    The notion of the GHZ builds off the longstanding idea of the stellar habitable zone (HZ), which is the specific distance a planet must orbit its star for liquid water to exist on its surface, which was first introduced in the 1950s. Like all scientific notions, the idea of a GHZ has evolved over time since it was first introduced in the 1980s, but the overarching idea is this region is comprised of heavier elements (i.e., iron, silicon, and oxygen) that are used to form terrestrial planets like Earth. As this study notes, the exact size of the GHZ is still being debated, but the consensus in the scientific community is that the GHZ does not exist in the center of the galaxy, as this region hosts countless supernovae and other celestial events that would limit habitable planets from forming.

    As the study notes, there are several ESA missions in the pipeline whose goals will be to expand our knowledge of both how and where to find life beyond Earth. For example, the PLATO mission, which is slated to launch in December 2026, will have the goal of scanning one million stars to observe and identify exoplanets that cross in front of them, known as a transit, and is one of the most common methods for discovering exoplanets to date.

    The Ariel mission, which is slated to launch in 2029, will have the goal of observing at least 1,000 confirmed exoplanets to learn more about their chemical and heat compositions. Finally, the LIFE mission has was started in 2017 with the goal of studying the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets to identify potential signs of life known as biomarkers.

    What new discoveries about the GHZ and stellar migration will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

    As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

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  • Adolescent nicotine exposure and persistent neurocircuitry changes: unveiling lifelong psychiatric risks

    Adolescent nicotine exposure and persistent neurocircuitry changes: unveiling lifelong psychiatric risks

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  • An Explosive Beginning for Lake Bosumtwi

    An Explosive Beginning for Lake Bosumtwi

    A satellite image taken in 2024 also shows Lake Bosumtwi. The 2024 image looks similar to the 2015 view but shows more cleared land around the lake and greener water.

    A satellite image taken in 2015 shows Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana, a nearly circular lake surrounded by dense dark-green forest. The crater rim forms a raised ring around the water, with lighter-colored cleared land and winding roads extending outward into the surrounding landscape.
    A satellite image taken in 2024 also shows Lake Bosumtwi. The 2024 image looks similar to the 2015 view but shows more cleared land around the lake and greener water.

    Ghana, a West African nation of about 35 million people, has just one natural lake. Lake Bosumtwi, a bowl-shaped body of water southeast of the fast-growing city of Kumasi, spans 49 square kilometers (19 square miles) and plunges to a depth of 70 meters (240 feet).

    In the myths of the local Asante people, the lake’s waters are considered sacred—a place where souls bid farewell to Earth before entering the afterlife. According to Asante mythology, the lake formed when a hunter named Akora Bompe chased a wounded antelope into a small, magical pond teeming with fish, causing the pond to swell rapidly into Lake Bosumtwi.

    Modern-day geologists have a more fiery, explosive explanation for the lake’s origin. Scientific analysis shows that an asteroid about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) wide slammed into the African rainforest just over 1 million years ago, leaving one of the youngest and best-preserved complex impact craters on Earth.

    The energy released would have generated a massive shockwave, flattening forests and hurling tons of vaporized rock and debris around the crater. “A blinding flash of light and an immense fireball would have incinerated life for dozens of kilometers,” said Marian Selorm Sapah, a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana.

    A similar impact in that same location today would result in the complete destruction of everything within a radius of several hundred kilometers, including major cities like Kumasi, according to Sapah. The volume of dust and aerosols injected into the upper atmosphere would also likely block enough sunlight to lead to an “impact winter” with long-term effects on agriculture.

    Remote sensing analysis of the area around the lake shows that the debris settled into a distinctive raised, lobed pattern around the crater that resembles a splash, a feature reminiscent of a rampart. Rampart craters typically form in areas with large amounts of subsurface water or ice. The features are rare on Earth but prevalent on Mars and icy bodies of the outer solar system, such as Ganymede, Dione, Tethys, and Charon. The asteroid that formed Bosumtwi likely hit an area saturated with groundwater.

    “Studying the structure and composition of Bosumtwi’s ejecta helps planetary scientists interpret remote sensing data from Mars and understand its hydrological history,” Sapah said.

    Satellite-based analysis of Bosumtwi’s form shows that signs of the feature’s cataclysmic beginnings are still embedded in the landscape. These include a steep and well-preserved crater rim, the shape and composition of the debris field, the circular drainage pattern in the surrounding streams, and a concentric ridge around the crater.

    Bosumtwi’s exotic geology has drawn attention to the crater for economic reasons as well. When the asteroid struck, the shockwave fractured the crust around the crater, creating an extensive network of faults and cracks that allowed hot fluids to circulate. The event helped concentrate gold and other minerals from a gold-bearing rock layer called the Birimian Supergroup near the surface and primed the area around the crater to become a target of small-scale gold mining, sometimes called galamsey locally.

    The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured this image of Bosumtwi (right) on December 21, 2024. The image on the left shows the same area in December 2015. These images, along with a separate analysis by remote sensing experts, show a marked expansion of mining, particularly southwest of the lake, as well as rapid expansion of farmland and villages around the lake in recent decades.

    The greener water in 2024 is likely due to the lake having a higher concentration of some types of phytoplankton. Phytoplankton in the lake varies seasonally due to changing environmental conditions. Some research suggests that land use change near the lake may be contributing to increased loads of nutrients and making certain types of phytoplankton more abundant.

    A team of NASA-funded scientists developed an app that uses Landsat images to track the expansion of gold mining in this region and helps distinguish between artisanal and industrial-scale mines. While industrial-scale mining typically occurs within large open pits, artisanal mining is usually more superficial; however, it often leaves swathes of deforested land and mercury-contaminated waterways. Most of the new mining seen around the lake was classified as artisanal.

    “The stark visual evidence of anthropogenic change juxtaposed with a million-year-old geological landmark is striking,” Sapah said. “The clear encroachment of settlements, agriculture, and mining activities right up to the lake’s steep crater rim is a testament to both the image resolution and the scale of the change.”

     

     

    NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

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  • Paleontologist Discovers First Known Silurian Horseshoe Crab

    Paleontologist Discovers First Known Silurian Horseshoe Crab

    Horseshoe crabs are an ancient lineage with an evolutionary history stretching back 450 million years (Ordovician period) and are generally considered to be examples of ‘living fossils.’ A paleontologist from West Virginia University has described a new genus and species of true horseshoe crab from a Silurian-age specimen unearthed in Indiana, the United States. The species bridges the 80-million-year gap in the horseshoe crab fossil record and has an overall morphology similar to that of the Ordovician species.

    Ciurcalimulus discobolus, holotype. Scale bars – 5 mm. Image credit: James C. Lamsdell, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2025.0874.

    “Horseshoe crabs (order Xiphosura) are aquatic chelicerate arthropods defined by the fusion of their body segments into a thoracetron,” Dr. James Lamsdell of West Virginia University wrote in his new paper.

    “Four living species are known and exhibit a disjunct geographical distribution, with one species occurring in the western Atlantic (ranging from the east coast of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico) and three in the western Pacific and northeast Indian Oceans (extending from the south of Japan to the east coast of India).”

    “The group is famous as an example of an evolutionary conservative lineage and is considered to comprise archetypal ‘living fossils,’ although more recent work has demonstrated repeated ecological transitions within the group to be associated with the development of extreme morphologies.”

    “Horseshoe crabs have a long evolutionary history stretching back to the Late Ordovician (450 million years ago) with two species described from North America and another, slightly older (Early Ordovician, 480 million years ago) species reported but awaiting formal description from Morocco.”

    “The origins and early evolution of horseshoe crabs are poorly known, however, with an 80-million-year gap between these Ordovician species and the first record of Xiphosurida (horseshoe crabs that have reduced their postabdomen to a single segment) in the Late Devonian (370 million years ago).”

    “This lack of a fossil record for horseshoe crabs in the Silurian, a time during which other aquatic chelicerate groups were rapidly diversifying, makes it difficult to determine the timing of the origin of xiphosurids and to what extent the end Ordovician mass extinction and Silurian ecosystem recovery influenced horseshoe crab evolution.”

    The newly-identified species of horseshoe crab lived during the Silurian, around 424 million years ago.

    Named Ciurcalimulus discobolus, the animal is known from a single specimen found in 1975 by Samuel J. Ciurca, Jr in the Kokomo Member of the Wabash Formation in Indiana.

    “The Kokomo Member comprises up to 30 m of finely laminated dark dolostones and is considered to be Silurian in age based on conodont data,” the paleontologist wrote.

    “The Kokomo localities are primarily known for their endemic eurypterid fauna, which occur in a single horizon and are recognized to represent a mass extinction event, although a variety of algae co-occur with the eurypterids and brachiopods are found alongside corals near the top of the member in what is sometimes referred to as the brachiopod horizon.”

    “Ciurcalimulus discobolus is derived from the eurypterid horizon and is preserved similarly to the eurypterids, which are compression fossils with carbonized cuticle.”

    Ciurcalimulus discobolus is distinguished from other early horseshoe crabs through its unique combination of characteristics unknown among other species.

    “Ciurcalimulus most closely resembles the Ordovician Lunataspis species in possessing a heavily rounded prosomal carapace and a semicircular thoracetron lacking lateral segment boundary expression or tergopleural projections as well as a multisegmented postabdomen,” the researcher wrote.

    “However, the new genus is distinguished from Lunataspis in lacking axial nodes on the thoracetron and the absence of a thoracetron marginal rim defined dorsally by a furrow, both of which are present in the Ordovician species.”

    “The Silurian age of Ciurcalimulus shows that Xiphosura retaining the general morphology observed among Ordovician species persisted beyond the end Ordovician mass extinction, suggesting the event had a limited impact on horseshoe crab evolution.”

    “Over the course of their evolutionary history, horseshoe crabs attained a global distribution,” he added.

    “However, the first horseshoe crabs are known from the paleocontinents of Laurussia and Siberia, while the oldest described horseshoe crabs are found in Laurentia.”

    “The additional discovery of Ciurcalimulus suggests that Laurentia was an important site of early horseshoe crab evolution, although it must be recognized that there is a strong historical bias in paleontological research toward localities in Europe and former European colonies.”

    “As such, Laurentia is likely to be more heavily sampled than other paleocontinents such as Gondwana, an important consideration given that the oldest currently known horseshoe crab is an undescribed species from Morocco.”

    The paper was published on June 18 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

    _____

    James C. Lamsdell. 2025. The first Silurian horseshoe crab reveals details of the xiphosuran ground plan. Proc. R. Soc. B 292 (2049): 20250874; doi: 10.1098/rspb.2025.0874

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  • James Webb Space Telescope spots odd planet-forming disk around infant star

    James Webb Space Telescope spots odd planet-forming disk around infant star

    Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered a strange disk of gas and dust around an infant star that could challenge current models of planet formation.

    The protoplanetary disk has an odd chemical composition. It features a surprisingly high concentration of carbon dioxide in the region in which rocky planets like Earth are expected to form and is also unexpectedly low in water content.

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  • Farming spread through migration, not local adoption, ancient DNA reveals – Archaeology News Online Magazine

    1. Farming spread through migration, not local adoption, ancient DNA reveals  Archaeology News Online Magazine
    2. Modeling the European Neolithic expansion suggests predominant within-group mating and limited cultural transmission  Nature
    3. Ancient DNA reveals farming spread through migration, locals slow to adopt it  Penn State University
    4. Ancient DNA shows what really spread the farming revolution  Earth.com
    5. Ancient DNA Reveals Hunter-Gatherers and Farmers Coexisted for Generations  GreekReporter.com

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  • A Massive Virtual Radio Telescope Spots A Ribbon-like Jet Of Super-heated Plasma

    A Massive Virtual Radio Telescope Spots A Ribbon-like Jet Of Super-heated Plasma

    Astronomers have observed the distant active galaxy OJ 287 for many years. It’s a BL Lac object, a type of active galactic nuclei known for their extreme variability. They display rapid and pronounced variability in their brightness across multiple wavelengths.

    In simple terms, an active galactic nuclei is a supermassive black hole (SMBH) that’s actively accreting material. SMBHs exert an extraordinarily powerful influence on their surroundings. Observing the formation and propagation of jets that come from SMBHs are one way to understand how they dominate their environments. Among other effects, these jets heat up nearby gas clouds, stifling their star formation.

    New observations with a radio interferometer named Radioastron Space VLBI revealed the presence of an unusual ribbon-like jet of material emanating from the center of OJ 287. The observations and results are in a recent paper titled “Revealing a ribbon-like jet in OJ 287 with RadioAstron.” The lead author is Dr. Thalia Traianou from Heidelberg University, and the paper is published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

    The RadioAstron Space VLBI mission combines a spaceborne radio telescope with 27 ground-based radio telescopes worldwide to create a large virtual telescope. Using interferometry, it creates a virtual radio telescope that’s five times Earth’s diameter. This gives RadioAstron exceptionally high spatial resolution, allowing the telescope to peer into OJ 287’s core. Over several years of observations, it found a long, sinuous, ribbon-like jet of plasma that twists and turns as it reaches into space.

    While this jet has been spotted before, and is the site of a historic detection of an extremely energetic shock, this is the first time astronomers have observed the twists and turns. “For the first time, due to a favorable geometrical position of the jet in tandem with high data quality, we detect multiple sharp bends that form a “ribbon-like” jet structure that extends down to 1 mas,” the authors write in their research article.

    These are multi-epoch VLBI images of OJ 287 observed on May 3, 2014, April 11, 2015, April 22, 2016, and April 16, 2017. The ridgelines, delineating the jet’s axis for each epoch, are overlaid as dashed lime lines, with a black outline for enhanced visibility. This image sequence clearly shows the jet’s evolution over the four years. Image Credit: Traianou et al. 2025. A&A

    RadioAstron detected more than just the ribbon-like jet. It also also found regions within the jet with temperatures greater than 10 trillion Kelvin. That’s extremely hot. The Sun’s core is about 15 million Kelvin, for comparison, meaning that the hot regions in the jet are 660,000 times hotter. This temperature is similar to the Universe only microseconds after the Big Bang, when all matter existed as quark-gluon plasma.

    They also found the emergence of a new jet component. It’s a new shock wave in the jet that slammed into a pre-existing stationary shock. It coincides with the historic detection of a massive outburst of energy in 2017 that released trillion-electron-volt gamma rays from OJ 287.

    “We captured the birth of a jet component and watched it travel down this beautiful ribbon until it hit a shock wave and produced the most energetic gamma rays ever detected from this source,” said lead author Traianou in a press release.

    The new RadioAstron observations of OJ 287’s twisted jet may help explain a long-standing puzzle.

    Astronomers have been observing OJ 287 for well over a century, logging the object’s brightness variations. They follow an unusual 60-year cycle, and a shorter 12-year cycle of extremely luminous flares. The cyclical variations suggest that the galaxy hosts a pair of black holes. This could not only create the cycle, but could also explain why the jet is twisted like a ribbon. If two black holes are orbiting each other, their motion could twist the jet.

    “These periodic variations are explained well by a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) model in which a secondary supermassive black hole follows a precessing, eccentric orbit around a more massive primary,” the authors explain. “Flares are generated each time a smaller component crosses the primary’s accretion disk.”

    These images of OJ 287 are from April 25, 2016. The image on the left shows brightness temperature. The image on the right shows total intensity contours. P1, P2, and P3 are polarized features, and the central dashed green curve traces the jet ridgeline. Yellow circles C1 and C2 mark the locations of the black holes. Image Credit: Traianou et al. 2025. A&A These images of OJ 287 are from April 25, 2016. The image on the left shows brightness temperature. The image on the right shows total intensity contours. P1, P2, and P3 are polarized features, and the central dashed green curve traces the jet ridgeline. Yellow circles C1 and C2 mark the locations of the black holes. Image Credit: Traianou et al. 2025. A&A

    Finding a galaxy with a pair of black holes presents a new opportunity. Eventually, the pair will likely merge and produce gravitational waves. Astronomers have detected these waves from many mergers, so OJ 287 is a chance to observe a pair of SMBH before they merge. While RadioAstron ended in 2019, observations of OJ 287 with other facilities will be ongoing.

    “One of the beautiful things about fundamental science is the unpredictability of its impact. When electricity was discovered two hundred years ago, no one could have imagined how deeply it would shape modern society, said co-author Professor Leonid Curvits from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. “It’s the same with our research: we don’t know when and what its effects will be. But that uncertainty is part of what makes fundamental science so exciting. That said, it is certain that this RadioAstron study is a prelude to the upcoming transformational discoveries in the new era of multi-messenger astronomy.”

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  • Cataclysmic crash with neighboring planet may be the reason there’s life on Earth today, new studies hint

    Cataclysmic crash with neighboring planet may be the reason there’s life on Earth today, new studies hint

    Early Earth was a barren wasteland incapable of supporting life until a big protoplanet crash carried in the necessary ingredients, a new study suggests.

    That collision of the proto-Earth and a Mars-size body — nicknamed Theia — has been theorized for decades, especially in discussions of how our moon may have formed from the resulting pieces of the crash.

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  • Astronomers Find Surprise Exoplanet Forming Around Sun-Like Star – extremetech.com

    1. Astronomers Find Surprise Exoplanet Forming Around Sun-Like Star  extremetech.com
    2. A newborn planet munches on gas and dust surrounding its host star  Science News
    3. It’s official—Scientists in Chile capture the first image of a world forming inside a protoplanetary disk and reveal how planets are born, confirming theories about the origin of worlds  Blanquivioletas
    4. Arizona scientists discovered a massive planet that’s still just a baby  azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic
    5. Jupiter-Like Planet Discovered Orbiting a Young Star in Solar System Far Away  People.com

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