“The Big Bang Theory” universe is expanding once more.
A new spinoff of the long-running sitcom, which followed physicists Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) as well as their circle of friends, has been ordered to series at HBO Max, the network confirmed in a July 9 press release.
The project — titled “Stuart Fails to Save the Universe” — marks the fourth series in the TV franchise, which also includes “Young Sheldon” and “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.” This time, the plot would focus on the hijinks of Stuart Bloom (Kevin Sussman), an acquaintance who became increasingly prominent in “The Big Bang Theory’s” later seasons.
“Comic book store owner Stuart Bloom is tasked with restoring reality after he breaks a device built by Sheldon and Leonard,” the release read, “accidentally bringing about a multiverse Armageddon.”
Notably, the release also teased appearances by “alternate-universe versions of characters” from the original series — which aired on CBS from 2007 to 2019 — but warned that “as the title implies, things don’t go well.”
READ Felicity Huffman Reacts to Desperate Housewives Spinoff
In addition to Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, Brian Posehn and John Ross Bowie, all of whom recurred on the flagship series, are reprising their roles for the new show. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time a fan favorite from “The Big Bang Theory” returned to the small screen.
In May 2024, Parsons appeared in character alongside Mayim Bialik, who played his wife Amy Farrah Fowler in the original series, during the series finale of Young Sheldon after serving as narrator throughout the show’s seven-season run.
“It was very, very special to do that,” he told E! News at the time. “You shoot that final episode and it’s wrapped for you. Then a couple of months later, it wraps for the rest of the world and it’s a very weird feeling to flood over you again like that.”
But the Emmy winner cautioned fans not to get their hopes up for more Sheldon going forward.
“Never say never to anything,” he said. “Life is long, God willing. But I don’t think so.”
PHOTOSThe Big Bang Theory
Kate Micucci is giving fans a positive health update.
Joy-Anna Duggar opens up about painful miscarriage experience
Joy Anna Duggar is opening up about the painful period she went through after losing her unborn baby girls.
In a recent chat on the Jinger & Jeremy podcast, the TV personality poured her heart out in front of her sisters, Jinger and Jessa Duggar, about the difficult time.
“I guess looking back, I did have kind of a gut feeling of something may not be right,” Joy-Anna said as she got emotional while sharing. “But also I’m like, ‘I don’t want to over exaggerate.’ …I just remember feeling so numb leaving the ultrasound.”
The 19 Kids alum had to deliver her daughter, Annabell, at 20 weeks in 2019, whom she shares with husband Austin Forsyth.
“That was extremely hard, having to go through the whole delivery process,” Joy-Anna noted.
While expressing her grief and pain, the Jill & Jessa: Counting On star said she felt like she “was in a fog” for six months after the loss.
“I’m so thankful that I had [my mom] there that had been through it before… even with all of that, it was extremely difficult,” she added.
Imagine a space telescope with a mirror stretching 50 meters across! That’s larger than the width of a UK soccer field and nearly eight times wider than the James Webb Space Telescope. Now imagine that this enormous mirror is made not of precisely manufactured glass segments, but of liquid floating in space. This might sound like science fiction but it’s the cutting edge concept behind the Fluidic Telescope (FLUTE), a joint NASA-Technion project that could revolutionise how we explore the universe.
The challenge of building ever larger space telescopes has reached a technological bottleneck. Even the James Webb Space Telescope, with its 6.5-meter segmented mirror, pushed the limits of what could be folded into a rocket and deployed in space. Scaling this approach to the tens of meters needed to directly image Earth like exoplanets seems impossible with current methods.
The mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope will be dwarfed by a next generation of liquid mirror space telescopes. (Credit : NASA)
Enter the liquid mirror solution. In the microgravity environment of space, a thin film of liquid naturally forms a perfect spherical surface due to surface tension, the shape needed for a telescope mirror. The FLUTE concept proposes using this phenomenon to create mirrors that would be impractical or impossible to manufacture using traditional solid materials.
But there’s a catch: even if such a mirror could be created, what happens when the telescope needs to slew from one astronomical target to another? New research led by Israel Gabay and colleagues at Technion has tackled this fundamental question through sophisticated mathematical modelling and experimentation. Their work reveals both the promise and the challenges of liquid space telescopes.
Size comparison of the James Webb Space Telescope and concept of the next generation fluidic telescope. (Credit : NASA)
The team developed the first comprehensive theoretical model describing how a liquid mirror behaves when subjected to the angular accelerations of telescope slewing manoeuvres. Using advanced mathematical techniques they created analytical solutions that predict exactly how the liquid surface will deform during and after telescope movements.
Their findings are both encouraging and sobering. When a 50 meter liquid telescope with a 1 millimetre thick mirror performs typical slewing manoeuvres, the surface does indeed deform, with disturbances reaching several micrometers at the edges. However, these deformations propagate inward extremely slowly, taking years to reach the telescope’s center.
The key insight is that not all of the mirror needs to remain perfect. Even after 10 years of operation involving daily slewing manoeuvres, the inner 80% of the aperture remains adequately formed. This is well within the tolerance for high quality space optics.
The research reveals that telescope operators would need to manage a “manoeuvring budget”, or the total amount of slewing the telescope can perform before deformations compromise its optical performance. Interestingly, the study found that multiple small manoeuvres in different directions can sometimes produce better results than single large movements, as they create more symmetric deformation patterns that are easier to correct optically.
To validate their theoretical predictions, the researchers conducted ingenious laboratory experiments using microscopic liquid films and contactless electromagnetic forces to create controlled deformations. Despite the vast difference in scale the mathematical framework successfully predicted the observed liquid dynamics.
A liquid-mirror telescope. In this design, the optical sensors are mounted above the mirror, in a module at its focus, and the motor and bearings that turn the mirror are in the same module as the sensors. The mirror is suspended below. (Credit : NASA Orbital Debris Program Office)
The implications extend beyond just building bigger telescopes. Liquid mirrors could enable space telescopes that reshape themselves for different observational tasks, correct their own optical aberrations, or even self repair from micrometeorite damage. The research suggests that such telescopes could maintain functionality for decades, with the possibility of “reset” procedures to restore the original mirror shape when needed.
As space agencies plan the next generation of telescopes for the 2030s and beyond, the FLUTE concept represents a shift from the precision manufacturing process to precision fluid dynamics. While challenges remain, particularly in the engineering systems needed to contain and control the liquid in space, this research demonstrates that the fundamental physics is sound.
Source : Fluid dynamics of a liquid mirror space telescope
Mel B surprises fans with recent update after third marriage
Mel B was granted the privilege to tie the knot with Rory McPhee at St. Paul’s Cathedral due to her previous charitable services.
The former Spice Girl, who rose to fame with the 1990s pop group, said “I do” for the third time at the same venue where King Charles and Princess Diana were married.
Mel, 50, was permitted to use this exclusive cathedral after being named on the 2022 MBE honours list for her charitable services.
This recognition has also allowed the Scary Spice to baptise her three chidren – Phoenix, 26, Angel, 18, and Madison, 13, at the same church.
The Wannabe hitmaker wore a pearl-adorned sheer white gown paired with a bridal veil for the special ceremony.
Meanwhile, Rory, 37, donned traditional Scottish attire, including a red and green tartan kilt.
Former Spice Girl Emma Bunton, along with Danielle Brown, Daisy Lowe, Katherine Ryan, and Gaby Roslin, were in attendance.
It is pertinent to mention that the Spice World actress shares daughter Phoenix with ex-husband Jimmy Gulzar, from whom she separated in 2000.
Mel B later married Stephen Belafonte, and the couple were together for a decade before divorcing in 2017.
For the unversed, the Stop singer tied the knot with McPhee on Saturday, July 5, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Every day, our brain takes countless fleeting experiences — from walks on the beach to presentations at work — and transforms them into long-term memories. How exactly this works remains a mystery, but neuroscientists believe that it involves a phenomenon called neural replay, in which neurons rapidly recreate the same activation sequences that occurred during the original experience. Surprisingly, neural replays can happen both before and after an experience, suggesting they help in both memory storage and also future planning.
In a new study, neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, recorded activity from hundreds of neurons simultaneously in freely flying bats. It is the first time that an ensemble of neurons — rather than just individual neurons — have been studied in concert in bats as they fly around and behave naturally. The data provided surprising new insights into neural replay and theta sequences, another phenomenon which is believed to be involved in memory and planning.
“For the past 20 years, we’ve been recording single neurons in bats and asking the question, ‘When animals are doing interesting things, what do individual neurons do?’” said study senior author Michael Yartsev, an associate professor of neuroscience and bioengineering and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at UC Berkeley. “But in the brain, there are emerging properties that you only see when you’re looking at ensembles of neurons. In this study, we looked at these two phenomena — replay and theta sequences — that are only visible when you track many neurons at the same time.”
Better understanding the role of replay and theta sequences in the brains of animals could shed light on how long-term memories are formed and stored in humans, potentially leading to new treatments for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.
The study, which was published online today (July 9) in the journal Nature, was supported by grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Office of Naval Research.
‘A whole different ball game’
Studying neural replay and theta sequences is tricky because it requires listening in on tens or hundreds of neurons in the brain simultaneously. Over the past decade, Michael Yartsev’s lab has pioneered wireless neural recording technologies in Egyptian fruit bats, giving his team an unprecedented view inside the brains of these navigational experts as they forage in large environments.
Previously, the wireless recording devices were only able to detect signals from small numbers of neurons at a time. In the new study, co-first authors Angelo Forli, Wudi Fan and Kevin Qi successfully utilized high-density silicon electrode arrays that can record hundreds of neurons at once from flying bats. These electrodes can also record local field potentials, a measure of the overall electrical activity in a region of the brain.
“It’s a whole different ball game to record such large ensembles of neurons wirelessly in a flying animal,” Yartsev said. “This was never possible before now.”
To study neural replay and theta sequences, the researchers tracked the activity of “place cells,” a type of neuron that is found in the hippocampus of many species. Individual place cells fire when an animal is in a specific location in space, creating an internal spatial map of their environment.
“If you know that a place cell corresponds to a specific location in space, and the cell is active, then you can infer that the bat is in that location,” said Angelo Forli, who is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. “If you can track multiple cells, you can know the path that the bat took.”
The study team (from left) Angelo Fori, Wudi Fan, Michael Yartsev and Kevin Qi.
Adam Lau/Berkeley Engineering
But place cells aren’t only active when an animal is moving around. Experiments in rodents have shown that they exhibit hippocampal replay during rest, essentially refiring in the same sequence as they did during the movement but in a shorter, time compressed format.
Place cells in rodents also exhibit patterns called theta sequences, which happen during movement, and are believed to represent the animal “looking ahead” just a few steps from its current location.
“Previously, these phenomena were exclusively investigated in rodents, because that’s what the technology allowed. We wanted to find out if they also exist in bats, and if they do, are they any different from what we see in rodents?” said Forli. “We discovered a series of differences that challenge established models.”
A fundamental unit of information processing
In the experiment, the researchers recorded the activity of bats’ place cells as they flew freely around a large flight room and identified which sequences of place cells corresponded with specific trajectories. They were then able to identify replay events, or moments when these same neural sequences occurred when the bats were at rest.
Most of what we know about replay has been gleaned from experiments on rodents in unnatural settings, such as a “sleep box,” to record replay events following behavioral runs. This introduces artificial boundaries between active and inactive states. In contrast, bats have many natural active periods and rest periods within the same experimental session, allowing for the capture of replay under less restrictive conditions. This led to the discovery that replays mostly occur minutes after the experience, and often at locations distant from where the experience took place.
Surprisingly, the researchers also found that the length of these replay events was the same for all flight trajectories, no matter how long the flight was. Essentially, if one neural sequence corresponded to a 10-meter flight, and another neural sequence corresponded to a 20-meter flight, the replays of both of those sequences were time-compressed to the same length.
“We saw that replays for short versus long trajectories had the same duration,” Forli said. “It seems that information is cut down to the same chunk of time regardless of the length of the experience.”
The researchers hypothesize that this constant replay duration may represent an elemental unit of information processing in the brain.
“From a computational perspective, it’s incredibly advantageous to send fixed packets of information,” Yartsev said. “It’s very efficient because whatever is reading that information out knows it will arrive in these fixed sizes.”
The team’s next question concerned theta sequences, a type of ensemble phenomenon that is believed to support replay and to rely on theta oscillations in the hippocampus. However, unlike rodents, bats and humans both lack continuous theta oscillations, which occur at a frequency of approximately 8 Hertz, or eight wingbeats per second. Interestingly, the researchers found sequential network activity during flight in bats, akin to theta sequences in rodents, but with one major difference: unlike rodents, the fast sequences in bats had no relationship to theta oscillations, but were, instead, synced to the bats’ 8 Hz wingbeats.
From the quivering of a mouse’s whiskers to the rhythms of human speech, there are countless other animal behaviors that occur at frequencies around 8 Hz. The researchers hypothesize that these theta sequences might provide a universal neural mechanism for how these behaviors are organized and directed in the animal brain.
“There’s something about this frequency which is ubiquitous across species, particularly mammalian species,” Yartsev said. “Our findings may provide the beginning of a mechanistic understanding of the neural basis of these behaviors, not only in rats and bats, but maybe also in other species like humans.”
Additional support for this research was provided by the New York Stem Cell Foundation, the Vallee Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
In a recent study, the first of its kind to explore the impact of antibiotics on adolescent depression, investigators evaluated the risk that antibiotic exposure may pose to adolescents in developing depression.1 With a growing prevalence of depression in adolescents, the authors examined the link between gut microbiome and depression, finding that antibiotics may impact gut microbiome.
Jin et al, in their study “The association between urinary antibiotic levels and the risk of adolescent depression,” identified 4 common antibiotics (azithromycin, sulfadimidine, ofloxacin, and ampicillin) to measure through urinary analysis. They compared single day, morning urinary samples from a group of 30 adolescents diagnosed with depression per the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and a healthy control group of 32 adolescents. Urinary analysis was performed via liquid chromatography. Within the group of patients with depression, individuals were divided into low-moderate and severe groups based on their HAM-A and HAM-D scores. The control group was 75% female and 25% male, while the patient group was 76.7% female and 23.3% male. Between the control group and group with depression, there was no significant difference in BMI, age, or gender.
Participants with depression had significantly higher levels of each antibiotic, and higher levels were positively correlated with higher scores on elements of the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A) and Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D). The authors further noted that a combination of measuring of all 4 antibiotics showed the best performance as a predictor of adolescent depression. The study indicated that urinary antibiotic measurements are a potential screening tool for adolescent depression risk and noted that antibiotic exposure for this age group is a modifiable risk.
For each of the 4 antibiotic types evaluated in this study, all 4 were positively correlated with HAM-A and HAM-D scores. For HAM-A scores: azithromycin (r = 0.402, P = 0.0012), sulfadimidine (r = 0.384, P = 0.002), ofloxacin (r = 0.390, P = 0.002), and ampicillin (r = 0.461, P = 0.0002). For HAM-D scores: azithromycin (r = 0.383, P = 0.0021), sulfadimidine (r = 0.362, P = 0.0004), ofloxacin (r = 0.350, P = 0.005), and ampicillin(r = 0.429, P = 0.0005). From the HAM-A test, each antibiotic was correlated with scores on anxiety and autonomic nervous symptom items; from the HAM-D, each antibiotic was correlated with scores on anxiety, weight, cognitive disturbance, sleep disturbance, hopelessness, and other items. Although, there was no significant difference between the low-moderate and severe subgroups. There was still a significant difference between the control and depression groups.
A multitude of previous studies have acknowledged the effect of antibiotics on gut microbiome homeostasis, and the interactions of the microbiome-gut-brain axis are widely recognized.2,3 The gut microbiome also has a known influence on brain function and behavior in adolescents.4 Similarly, previous studies were also conducted with groups of elderly individuals in China which showed evidence of antibiotic induced depression. With these prior findings, the investigators delved further into the effects of antibiotics on the gut microbiome, and therefore brain function and risk of depression in adolescents. The study authors also noted that there are no consistent, replicable finding on what specific types or levels of microbiome elements are associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). There is also potential that different gut microbiota can lead to depression through a variety of metabolic pathways.
The authors also explored performance of screening techniques based on urinary antibiotic analysis. With the finding that a combinatory measurement of antibiotic types was the most accurate screening for adolescent depression risk using urinary analysis, investigators proposed that evaluating urine may enhance screening for high risk populations. Elevated urinary antibiotic levels may also serve as more objective measurements for critical risk factors in adolescent depression, compared with subjective self reported patient surveys. Especially as use of antibiotics to treat infections in adolescents is associated with increased risk of mental disorders, the authors noted that controlling use of antibiotics in adolescents may be a key step to prevent depression in this population. New measurements of urinary antibiotic levels can bolster existing strategies to enhance early risk assessment and targeted intervention for MDD in adolescents, they added. “Our study highlights urinary antibiotic levels as modifiable risk factors strongly associated with adolescent depression. The integration of these non-invasive biomarkers demonstrates robust performance in screening for depression risk, offering a novel approach to complement existing diagnostic strategies and prioritize early risk identification in vulnerable populations,” the authors concluded.
References
1. Jin Y, Jin X, Ge Z, et al. The association between urinary antibiotics levels and the risk of adolescent depression. Sci Rep. 2025;15(1):24093.
2. Kelly JR, Borre Y, O’ Brien C, et al. Transferring the blues: depression-associated gut microbiota induces neurobehavioural changes in the rat. J Psychiatr Res. 2016;82:109-118.
3. Chung YE, Chen HC, Chou HL, et al. Exploration of microbiota targets for major depressive disorder and mood related traits. J Psychiatr Res. 2019;111:74-82.
4. Diaz Heijtz R, Wang S, Anuar F, et al. Normal gut microbiota modulates brain development and behavior. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011;108(7):3047-3052.
An analysis of Northwest Africa (NWA) 16286, a lunar meteorite with a unique chemical signature, offers fresh insights into how the Moon’s interior evolved, highlighting the long-lived nature of its volcanic activity.
Backscattered electron image of the NWA 16286 sample. Image credit: Joshua Snape / University of Manchester.
Found in Africa in 2023, NWA 16286 is only one of 31 lunar basalts officially identified on Earth.
The 311-gram meteorite’s distinct composition, with melted glassy pockets and veins, suggests it was likely shocked by an asteroid or meteorite impact on the Moon’s surface before being ejected and eventually falling to Earth.
The new analysis by University of Manchester scientists lends weight to a theory that the Moon retained internal heat-generating processes that powered lunar volcanic activity in several distinct phases.
Lead isotope analysis dates the rock’s formation to around 2.35 billion years ago, during a period from which few lunar samples exist, making it the youngest basaltic lunar meteorite discovered on Earth.
Its rare geochemical profile sets it apart from those returned by previous Moon missions, with chemical evidence indicating it likely formed from a lava flow that solidified after emerging from deep within the Moon.
“Lunar rocks from sample return missions are fantastic in the insights they provide us, but they are limited to the immediate areas surrounding those mission landing sites,” said University of Manchester’s Dr. Joshua Snape.
“By contrast, lunar meteorites can potentially be ejected by impact cratering occurring anywhere on the Moon’s surface.”
“As such, there’s some serendipity surrounding this sample; it just happened to fall to Earth and reveals secrets about lunar geology without the massive expense of a space mission.”
Containing relatively large crystals of mineral olivine, the rock is a type of lunar volcanic basalt called olivine-phyric basalt. It contains moderate levels of titanium, high levels of potassium.
In addition to the unusual age of the sample, the authors found that the lead isotope composition of the rock — a geochemical fingerprint retained from when the rock formed — points to it originating from a source in the Moon’s interior with an unusually high uranium-to-lead ratio.
These chemical clues may help identify the mechanisms that have enabled periods of ongoing internal heat generation on the Moon.
“The age of the sample is especially interesting because it fills an almost billion-year gap in lunar volcanic history,” Dr. Snape said.
“It’s younger than the basalts collected by the Apollo, Luna and Chang’e 6 missions, but older than the much younger rocks brought back by China’s Chang’e 5 mission.”
“Its age and composition show that volcanic activity continued on the Moon throughout this timespan, and our analysis suggests an ongoing heat generation process within the Moon, potentially from radiogenic elements decaying and producing heat over a long period.
“Moon rocks are rare, so it’s always interesting when we get something that stands out and looks different to everything else.”
“This particular rock provides new constraints about when and how volcanic activity occurred on the Moon.”
“There is much more yet to learn about the Moon’s geological past, and with further analysis to pinpoint its origin on the surface, this rock will guide where to land future sample return missions.”
The researchers presented their results today at the Goldschmidt Conference 2025 in Prague, the Czech Republic.
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Joshua F. Snape et al. Northwest Africa 16286: investigating the age and origin of a new lunar mare basalt. Goldschmidt Conference 2025
Size comparison of the James Webb Space Telescope and concept of the next generation fluidic telescope. (Credit : NASA)
A liquid-mirror telescope. In this design, the optical sensors are mounted above the mirror, in a module at its focus, and the motor and bearings that turn the mirror are in the same module as the sensors. The mirror is suspended below. (Credit : NASA Orbital Debris Program Office)
