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The largest chunk of Mars on Earth just fetched a meteoric sum at auction, but bidders really bit at a baby dino skeleton

The largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth was sold for just over $5 million at an auction of rare geological and archaeological objects in New York on Wednesday, while a juvenile dinosaur skeleton went for more than $30 million.

The 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock named NWA 16788 was discovered in the Sahara Desert in Niger by a meteorite hunter in November 2023, after having been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike and traveling 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) to Earth, according to Sotheby’s. The estimated sale price before the auction was $2 million to $4 million.

READ MORE: NASA rover Perseverance observes first aurora at Mars visible to the human eye

The identity of the buyer was not immediately disclosed. The final bid was $4.3 million. Adding various fees and costs, the official bid price was about $5.3 million.

Two advance bids of $1.9 million and $2 million were submitted. The live bidding went slower than for many other objects that were sold, with the auctioneer trying to coax more offers and decreasing the $200,000 to $300,000 bid intervals to $100,000 after the proposals hit $4 million.

The red, brown and gray meteorite is about 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7% of all the Martian material currently on this planet, Sotheby’s says. It measures nearly 15 inches by 11 inches by 6 inches (375 millimeters by 279 millimeters by 152 millimeters).

The juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton is displayed during a preview of Sotheby’s Natural History auction in New York City on July 8, 2025. Photo by Eduardo Munoz/ Reuters

It was also a rare find. There are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites found on Earth, the auction house says.

“This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot,” Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby’s, said in an interview before the auction. “So it’s more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.”

It’s not clear exactly when the meteorite was blasted off the surface of Mars, but testing showed it probably happened in recent years, Sotheby’s says.

READ MORE: ‘Dinosaur highway’ dating back 166 million years discovered in England

Hatton said a specialized lab examined a small piece of the red planet remnant and confirmed it was from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976, she said.

The examination found that it is an “olivine-microgabbroic shergottite,” a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma. It has a course-grained texture and contains the minerals pyroxene and olivine, Sotheby’s says.

It also has a glassy surface, likely due to the high heat that burned it when it fell through Earth’s atmosphere, Hatton said. “So that was their first clue that this wasn’t just some big rock on the ground,” she said.

The meteorite previously was on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome. Sotheby’s did not disclose the owner.

Bidding for the juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis dinosaur skeleton started with a high advance bid of $6 million, then escalated with offers $500,000 higher than the last and later $1 million higher than the last before ending at $26 million. The official sale price was $30.5 million with fees and costs. The original estimate was $4 million to $6 million.

READ MORE: What mud cracks on Mars tell us about whether life could have formed on the planet

Parts of the skeleton were found in 1996 near Laramie, Wyoming, at Bone Cabin Quarry, a gold mine for dinosaur bones. It’s more than 6 feet (2 meters) tall and nearly 11 feet (3 meters) long.

Specialists assembled nearly 140 fossil bones with some sculpted materials to recreate the skeleton and mounted it so it’s ready to exhibit, Sotheby’s says.

The juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton is displayed during a preview of Sotheby’s Natural History auction in New York City on July 8, 2025. Photo by Eduardo Munoz/ Reuters

The skeleton is believed to be from the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago, Sotheby’s says.

Ceratosaurus dinosaurs were bipeds with short arms that appear similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex, but smaller. Ceratosaurus dinosaurs could grow up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) long, while the Tyrannosaurs rex could be 40 feet (12 meters) long.

READ MORE: Fossils reveal dinosaur forerunner smaller than a cellphone

The skeleton was acquired last year by Fossilogic, a Utah-based fossil preparation and mounting company.

Wednesday’s auction was part of Sotheby’s Geek Week 2025 and featured 122 items, including other meteorites, fossils and gem-quality minerals.

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July 16, 2025
8 babies spared from potentially deadly inherited diseases through new ‘mitochondrial donation’ trial

Mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells, contain their own special DNA that gets passed from mother to child — but that DNA can sometimes carry mutations, causing diseases for which there are currently no cures.

Now, in a new clinical trial, eight babies who had a high risk of inheriting such diseases from their moms appear to have been spared, thanks to an emerging technique called “mitochondrial donation.”

The approach used in the trial has been in development for many years and is only just making its way into human patients. Early attempts at mitochondrial donation were first described in mouse experiments published in the 1980s, said study co-author Mary Herbert, a professor of reproductive biology at Monash University in Melbourne.

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After that came studies in human embryos that were fertilized through in vitro fertilization (IVF) but unfit for use, so they were instead donated for research. Then, world-first legislation passed in the United Kingdom in 2015 enabled research with good-quality human embryos, which was necessary to show the technique could actually result in a viable pregnancy. Since then, scientists have refined the approach for transferring healthy mitochondria into embryos, troubleshooting the many problems that arose along the way.

“There were hurdles at every stage,” said Herbert, who also holds appointments at Newcastle University and the Newcastle Fertility Centre in the U.K. Now, the trial results, described in two reports published Wednesday (July 16) in The New England Journal of Medicine, may offer a solution to parents who otherwise have a very high likelihood of passing these diseases to their kids.

“It’s just such a burden that goes down through the generations of women in these families,” Herbert said. “It really is gratifying to be able to do something, to offer some kind of way out.”

Related: 8-year-old with rare, fatal disease shows dramatic improvement on experimental treatment

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“This has brought joy and relief to the parents”

Inherited mitochondrial diseases, estimated to affect about 1 in 5,000 births, can cause a wide range of symptoms, including seizures, muscle weakness, fatigue, vision loss, heart disease, developmental delay and learning disabilities. These symptoms can range from mild and manageable to severe and life-threatening, with more serious presentations typically arising shortly after birth.

Although it’s known that the mutations behind these diseases are inherited from mom, their transfer from parent to offspring is still somewhat unpredictable. That’s because, in a given egg, the “mutational load” can vary — some eggs carry mitochondrial DNA with few to no harmful mutations, while others carry mitochondria with only mutated DNA.

If affected parents conceive without the help of reproductive technologies, “they might have a child who’s perfectly healthy or a child who dies in the first few days of life, essentially,” Herbert said.

Moms-to-be who carry a mix of high-load and low-load eggs have the option to handpick eggs with low loads using preimplantation genetic testing (PGT), a technique paired with IVF. However, “the ones who are not suitable for PGT are people who have very high mutation loads in all their eggs — sometimes 100% mutation loads,” Herbert explained.

These patients, who aren’t necessarily super sick themselves but would likely pass on concerning mutations, are the ones who could benefit from mitochondrial donation.

In the trial, researchers directly compared the PGT approach to mitochondrial donation. All the participants carried disease-causing mitochondrial DNA mutations, and they all underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a form of IVF in which a single sperm cell is injected straight into an egg to trigger fertilization. Patients with low enough mutational loads in some of their eggs were offered PGT, while those whose mutational loads were too high were offered mitochondrial donation.

The donation itself could be done a few different ways, but in the trial, the researchers used “pronuclear transfer,” in which an egg is fertilized before having its nucleus removed and placed in a different, donated egg cell. The donated egg had been screened for known mitochondrial mutations and also had its own nucleus removed. As such, the resulting embryo carries the nuclear DNA from the egg and sperm used for fertilization, as well as mitochondrial DNA from the donor egg.

Ultimately, 16 of 39 patients given PGT became pregnant, resulting in 18 babies born (including some twins). By comparison, 8 of 22 patients who received mitochondrial donation got pregnant, resulting in the birth of eight babies, so far, as there’s one pregnancy still ongoing. Both techniques resulted in a similar proportion of pregnancies out of the total people treated.

“This process has brought joy and relief to the parents of these children, who thought they were never going to be able to have children without the risk of mitochondrial disease,” said study co-author Dr. Bobby McFarland, a professor of pediatric mitochondrial medicine and honorary consultant pediatric neurologist at Newcastle University.

“To be part of the team effort to make that happen has been very special indeed,” he told Live Science in an email.

Related: In a 1st, child treated for rare, often-fatal disorder while still in the womb

Refining the technique even further

All the babies conceived through mitochondrial donation were born healthy and are meeting their developmental milestones, the team reported.

“We are now proud parents to a healthy baby — a true mitochondrial replacement success,” one mother to a baby boy said in a statement. “This breakthrough has lifted the heavy cloud of fear that once loomed over us.”

The children’s health will continue to be monitored closely going forward. “We have cast a wide net for clinical health data reporting on these children and also included a detailed developmental assessment at 18 months,” McFarland said. “We are in the process of amending the study to look for more subtle developmental problems at 5 years.”

Notably, the pronuclear transfer procedure doesn’t guarantee that every last scrap of mitochondrial DNA in the baby will be from the donor egg. That’s because, in the process of moving the nucleus from one egg to another, some small amount of mom’s mitochondrial DNA can be carried over with the nucleus, Herbert explained.

In the eight babies born so far, some had undetectable levels of maternal mitochondrial DNA in their blood cells while others have a detectable amount, but the concentration is below that which would be expected to cause disease. However, the team will need to watch to see if that mutation-carrying DNA becomes more plentiful over time, Herbert said.

“We have to view these technologies as risk reduction; we cannot guarantee prevention,” she said, emphasizing that parents are informed of this limitation prior to the procedure and counseled about all their options. Looking forward, the scientists hope to refine the technique to reduce the risk of that carry-over as much as possible, while also making the process more efficient and easy to reproduce.

Although the two groups of parents in the trial differed from one another, especially in terms of their mutational loads, it was good to compare the groups directly, Robin Lovell‑Badge, a principal group leader at the Francis Crick Institute in the U.K., wrote in an accompanying commentary in The New England Journal of Medicine.

“Having the group that underwent PGT as the comparison group strengthens the conclusion that pronuclear transfer is a valid method to reduce the risk of mtDNA [mitochondrial DNA] disease,” he wrote. “The articles, which were hotly anticipated, show a (cautiously) good outcome and are well worth the wait,” he added.

Research into mitochondrial donation will continue in the U.K., as well as in Australia, which passed similar regulations to the U.K. in 2022 to enable such studies, Herbert noted. McFarland added of the current trial that “this is still a relatively small number of babies so we do need to follow up more and for longer.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration does not currently allow clinical research into these types of “mitochondrial replacement techniques” in humans, in part due to long-standing regulations passed by Congress.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

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July 16, 2025
Baptist Health Announces 42nd Annual Echocardiography and Structural Heart Symposium

Elliott J. Elias, MD

Credit: Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute

Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, part of Baptist Health South Florida, will be hosting the 42nd Annual Echocardiography and Structural Heart Symposium on September 26-27, 2025, at the Loews Coral Gables Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. This premier educational event convenes leading experts in cardiovascular care to explore the latest advancements in imaging technologies and minimally invasive treatments for valvular and structural heart diseases.

“As valvular heart disease and structural heart treatments become increasingly integral within cardiology, the symposium focuses on building the fundamental tools of echocardiography,” said Elliott J. Elias, M.D., director of cardiac and structural imaging at Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute and co-director of the symposium. “It is tailored to both beginners and those with advanced skills, ensuring a comprehensive understanding from the perspective of the sonographer scanning the patient to the reader, be it a cardiologist or medical professional, taking care of the patient.”

The symposium will feature presentations from Baptist Health physician-researchers as well as renowned speakers from institutions across the U.S. and the globe. The topics that will be discussed include:

• Comprehensive evaluation and management of aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valve disease, including current guideline updates and treatment strategies.
• Advanced echocardiographic and imaging techniques, such as 3-D imaging, strain analysis, CT, and TEE, for structural heart disease assessment.
• Multimodality imaging in clinical decision-making, particularly for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, left atrial appendage, and valvular pathologies.
• Assessment and management of prosthetic heart valves, including detection and treatment of paravalvular leaks.
• Diagnostic challenges and controversial topics in structural heart care.
• Multidisciplinary, team-based approaches to optimizing outcomes in complex cardiovascular cases.

The symposium emphasizes a team-based approach to patient care, recognizing the importance of collaboration among cardiologists, surgeons, sonographers, and other healthcare professionals.

Healthcare professionals interested in attending the 42nd Annual Echocardiography and Structural Heart Symposium can register online at BaptistHealth.net/MiamiEcho. The event is designed for cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, sonographers, anesthesiologists, and other medical professionals dedicated to advancing their knowledge in echocardiography and structural heart disease.

For more information about the symposium, including the full agenda and registration details, please visit BaptistHealth.net/MiamiEcho.

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About Baptist Health South Florida

Baptist Health South Florida is the largest healthcare organization in the region, with 12 hospitals, more than 28,000 employees, 4,500 physicians and 200 outpatient centers, urgent care facilities and physician practices spanning Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Baptist Health has internationally renowned institutes specializing in cancer care, brain and spine care, heart and vascular care and orthopedic care. In addition, it includes Baptist Health Medical Group; Baptist Health Quality Network; and the Baptist Health PineApp, a virtual health platform. Baptist Health South Florida is an academic and clinical affiliate of Florida International University. A not-for-profit organization supported by philanthropy and committed to its charitable mission of medical excellence, Baptist Health has been recognized by Fortune as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America and is the most awarded healthcare system in South Florida by U.S. News & World Report. For more information, visit BaptistHealth.net/Newsroom and connect with us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn.

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July 16, 2025
All 4 I Know What You Did Last Summer Movies Ranked

(Photo by Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.)

After seeing the explosive and eye-popping success of Saw X and Final Destination Bloodlines, the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise hook-scratched its chin and said, “Why not me? Ow.” After all, if torture porn could release such a celebrated legacy sequel, then how about a reversal of fortune in kind for this dormant teen slasher, just like its Scream ilk in 2022.

Based on the Lois Duncan school library mainstay, the original I Know What You Did Last Summer grabs the novel’s mystery & suspense plot and gnashes it into a bloody affair, getting the killer to drop the gun and instead pick up a fishing hook to stick it to the victims, real personal-like. Starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr., they portray recent high school graduates who make a pact of silence after their reckless driving leaves a pedestrian dead. But now, a cloaked stalker terrorizes them with a sharp blade and mash notes of threats and vengeance.

Released just before Halloween 1997, I Know What You Did Last Summer was the first major teen slasher after Scream jolted the genre awake for the decade in 1996. Summer beat Scream 2 to release by a few months, and then got its own sequel in 1998 with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The 2006 direct-to-DVD I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer makes it a trilogy, crucially.

Over 25 years after their last appearances, Hewitt and Prinze Jr. return for 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer to guide the next generation of piss-poor drivers, co-starring along Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, and Sarah Pidgeon.

#1

Critics Consensus: Faithfully harkening back to the original for better or worse, this I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot serves up plenty of nostalgia without finding a compelling hook of its own.

Synopsis: When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep [More]

#2

Critics Consensus: A by-the-numbers slasher that arrived a decade too late, the mostly tedious I Know What You Did Last Summer will likely only hook diehard fans of the genre.

Synopsis: A year after running over a fisherman and dumping his body in the water, four friends reconvene when Julie (Jennifer [More]

#3

Critics Consensus: Boring, predictable, and bereft of thrills or chills, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer is exactly the kind of rehash that gives horror sequels a bad name.

Synopsis: A year after killing vengeful hit-and-run victim Ben Wills (Muse Watson), who gutted her friends with an iron hook, college [More]

#4

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: A mysterious killer stalks a group of friends who kept an accidental death a secret. [More]

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July 16, 2025
New property tax rates notified

RAWALPINDI:

The Board of Revenue’s Registration Branch has formally announced new property tax rates through a gazette notification, leading to the restoration of the online property registration system. Registry operations, which had been suspended for the past three weeks, have now resumed.

According to the new notification, the capital gains tax on the DC rate value of properties has significantly increased. For properties worth up to Rs50 million, active filers will now pay a tax rate of 4.5% (up from 3%), while late filers face a charge of 7.5% (previously 6%). Non-filers will incur an 11.5% rate.

For properties valued between Rs50 million and Rs100 million, the tax rate is set at 5% for active filers and 8.5% for late filers. Properties exceeding Rs100 million will be subject to a tax rate of 5.5%. In contrast, the advance tax for buyers has been adjusted. For properties valued up to Rs50 million, active filers will benefit from a reduced tax rate of 1.5% (down from 3%), while late filers will pay 4.5% (down from 6%). Non-filers in this bracket will be charged 10.5%.

For properties valued between Rs50 million and Rs100 million, active filers will pay 2%, late filers will pay 5.5%, and non-filers will incur a substantial charge of 14.5%. Properties worth over Rs100 million will have a tax rate of 2.5% for active taxpayers and 5.5% for late filers.

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July 16, 2025
Doctors Tested 3 Diets – Only One Stood Out for Beating Diabetes – SciTechDaily
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July 16, 2025
Pete Davidson having baby with model girlfriend Elsie Hewitt

Pete Davidson is going to be a father.

The “Saturday Night Live” alum’s girlfriend, British model and actor Elsie Hewitt, confirmed the news Wednesday with a cheeky Instagram post.

“Welp now everyone knows we had sex,” the model captioned a carousel of pregnancy photos, images of the pair and memes (including the viral “Love Island” “mamacita” moment).

Davidson, who famously avoids social media and does not have a public Instagram account, has not yet commented on the news.

Hewitt, 29, and Davidson, 31, first sparked dating rumors in March when they were spotted kissing in Palm Beach, Fla., and they’ve reportedly been living together in Brooklyn and Upstate New York. They made their red carpet debut in May at the Blossom Ball in New York City.

Hewitt, who previously dated Jason Sudeikis and Benny Blanco, has modeled for Guess and was a Playboy Playmate. She landed her first television role in 2018 on the series “Turnt” and has since made appearances on rapper Lil Dicky’s sitcom “Dave.”

Since Davidson left “SNL” in 2022, he has pivoted to focus more on stand-up and movies. The comedian — whose high-profile exes include Ariana Grande, Kim Kardashian, Madelyn Cline, Kate Beckinsale, Margaret Qualley, Kaia Gerber and Phoebe Dynevor — has a few projects lined up this year, including a starring role in the horror movie “The Home,” out July 25.

Davidson spent eight seasons on “SNL,” where he served as the show’s “resident young person,” developed his popular recurring character “Chad” and even bought a boat (the Staten Island Ferry) with co-star Colin Jost. He returned to host in 2023 and participated in the 50th anniversary special in February.

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July 16, 2025
Crystal Palace: Lib Dem MPs ask Lisa Nandy to intervene over Europa League demotion

A group of Liberal Democrat MPs have asked the culture secretary Lisa Nandy to intervene over Uefa’s “disgraceful” decision to demote Crystal Palace from the Europa League for breaching its multi-club ownership rules.

The seven politicians from London – including party leader Sir Ed Davey – wrote to express “deep concern” over what they called “a highly unusual and severe punishment on the club that raises serious questions about fairness and transparency in the governance of English football”.

The Eagles, who qualified for the Europa League by winning the FA Cup – their first major trophy – in May, were demoted to the lower tier Conference League on Friday.

The rules of European football’s governing body state that clubs owned, to a certain threshold of influence, by the same person or entity cannot compete in the same European competition.

American businessman John Textor owns a stake in Palace and is the majority owner of French club Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League.

Uefa’s rules set a deadline of 1 March 2025 to show proof of multi-club ownership restructuring – a deadline which Palace missed.

In a letter seen by BBC Sport, the group of Lib Dems described the saga as “heart-breaking for fans”.

“Other clubs seem to go through much more protracted disputes with less severe outcomes,” they said.

“Many believe that this process has been opaque and disproportionately punitive [and] risks undermining not only the club’s achievement but also public confidence in the fairness of football governance.”

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July 16, 2025
Cristiana Girelli rewrites Italian history at EURO 2025

Girelli leads from the front

The last time Italy were in a European semi-final, Cristiana Girelli was 7.

Now 35, she is at the heart of a reinvigorated Italian side with their sights set on glory.

Not only does she lead this side with a wealth of experience, but she does so in impeccable form.

Before this tournament, Girelli had bagged 23 goal involvements in the league for Juventus. Impressively, she has the most headed goals of any player in Europe’s top five leagues.

That form has continued in Switzerland, bagging three in four outings.

A member of the national team since 2013, she has been with them through the ups and downs, albeit more of the latter.

Italy are a side who, up until this evening, have not lived up to expectations – or at least not built upon the promise they have shown in previous tournaments.

In the last two editions of EUROs, they were sent packing in the group stages with just a single win between them both.

Now it seems as though head coach Andrea Soncin has hit the sweet spot with his side, a perfectly balanced blend of youthful energy with level-headed guidance across each position.

They are a cohesive unit – one with a focal point up top that they know they can rely on to step up in those big moments.

Girelli embodies the revival of nation once eclipsed by expectations, now ready to step into spotlight once more.

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July 16, 2025
In the News: Tyler Schipper on Increased Inflation – Newsroom | University of St. Thomas
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July 16, 2025