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  • Earth could be sitting in the centre of a giant cosmic void, according to astronomers

    Earth could be sitting in the centre of a giant cosmic void, according to astronomers

    It’s human to feel alarmed by the sheer emptiness of space.

    Now, astronomers from the University of Portsmouth in the UK suggest this unsettling vastness may be worse than we thought.

    More mind-blowing space science

    Credit: solarseven / Getty Images

    They reckon Earth, our entire Solar System and even our entire Milky Way sits inside a mysterious giant hole.

    This void, they believe, may cause the cosmos to expand more quickly in our local environment than in other parts of the Universe. 

    We (the green dot) may be adrift in a giant cosmic void, with matter flowing away into denser regions beyond. Credit: Moritz Haslbauer and Zarija Lukic
    We (the green dot) may be adrift in a giant cosmic void, with matter flowing away into denser regions beyond. Credit: Moritz Haslbauer and Zarija Lukic

    A solution to a cosmic problem

    The idea that Earth and the Milky Way are sitting in a void was proposed as a way of solving what’s known as the Hubble tension (or the Hubble crisis).

    This is a conundrum that has puzzled astronomers for years.

    The tension refers to the fact that the rate of the expansion of the Universe varies depending on where it’s measured.

    Illustration of the expansion of the Universe. Understanding more about this phenomenon could reveal clues as to how the Universe will end. Credit: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library
    Illustration of the expansion of the Universe. Understanding more about this phenomenon could reveal clues as to how the Universe will end. Credit: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library

    This discrepancy is a major problem for cosmologists, who need to know the expansion rate to accurately determine the Universe’s age.

    “A potential solution to this inconsistency is that our Galaxy is close to the centre of a large, local void,” explains Dr Indranil Banik, who proposed the idea at an astronomy conference in Durham in the UK.

    Banik presented data examining baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) – which roughly translate as the ‘sound’ of the Big Bang.

    The findings showed that a void model is about 100 million times more likely than a void-free model.

    Hubble tension is the name given to differences in measurements of the rate of the expansion of the Universe. Credit: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library / Getty Images
    Hubble tension is the name given to differences in measurements of the rate of the expansion of the Universe. Credit: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library / Getty Images. Credit: Mark Garlick / Science Photo Library / Getty Images

    Could the theory really be correct?

    For this theory to hold, Earth and our local galactic neighbourhood would need to lie near the centre of a void around a billion lightyears in radius, with a density about 20% lower than the Universe’s average. 

    But the idea of voids is controversial within the cosmology community.

    The standard cosmological model instead suggests that matter should be more uniformly spread throughout the Universe.

    While the answer hasn’t been definitively found, evidence for the void model could help cosmologists advance our understanding of the Universe’s structure.

    This article appeared in the September 2025 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine

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  • ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback

    ‘World Models,’ an Old Idea in AI, Mount a Comeback

    The latest ambition of artificial intelligence research — particularly within the labs seeking “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI — is something called a world model: a representation of the environment that an AI carries around inside itself like a computational snow globe. The AI system can use this simplified representation to evaluate predictions and decisions before applying them to its real-world tasks. The deep learning luminaries Yann LeCun (of Meta), Demis Hassabis (of Google DeepMind) and Yoshua Bengio (of Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute) all believe world models are essential for building AI systems that are truly smart, scientific and safe.

    The fields of psychology, robotics and machine learning have each been using some version of the concept for decades. You likely have a world model running inside your skull right now — it’s how you know not to step in front of a moving train without needing to run the experiment first.

    So does this mean that AI researchers have finally found a core concept whose meaning everyone can agree upon? As a famous physicist once wrote: Surely you’re joking. A world model may sound straightforward — but as usual, no one can agree on the details. What gets represented in the model, and to what level of fidelity? Is it innate or learned, or some combination of both? And how do you detect that it’s even there at all?

    It helps to know where the whole idea started. In 1943, a dozen years before the term “artificial intelligence” was coined, a 29-year-old Scottish psychologist named Kenneth Craik published an influential monograph in which he mused that “if the organism carries a ‘small-scale model’ of external reality … within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them … and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner.” Craik’s notion of a mental model or simulation presaged the “cognitive revolution” that transformed psychology in the 1950s and still rules the cognitive sciences today. What’s more, it directly linked cognition with computation: Craik considered the “power to parallel or model external events” to be “the fundamental feature” of both “neural machinery” and “calculating machines.”

    The nascent field of artificial intelligence eagerly adopted the world-modeling approach. In the late 1960s, an AI system called SHRDLU wowed observers by using a rudimentary “block world” to answer commonsense questions about tabletop objects, like “Can a pyramid support a block?” But these handcrafted models couldn’t scale up to handle the complexity of more realistic settings. By the late 1980s, the AI and robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks had given up on world models completely, famously asserting that “the world is its own best model” and “explicit representations … simply get in the way.”

    It took the rise of machine learning, especially deep learning based on artificial neural networks, to breathe life back into Craik’s brainchild. Instead of relying on brittle hand-coded rules, deep neural networks could build up internal approximations of their training environments through trial and error and then use them to accomplish narrowly specified tasks, such as driving a virtual race car. In the past few years, as the large language models behind chatbots like ChatGPT began to demonstrate emergent capabilities that they weren’t explicitly trained for — like inferring movie titles from strings of emojis, or playing the board game Othello — world models provided a convenient explanation for the mystery. To prominent AI experts such as Geoffrey Hinton, Ilya Sutskever and Chris Olah, it was obvious: Buried somewhere deep within an LLM’s thicket of virtual neurons must lie “a small-scale model of external reality,” just as Craik imagined.

    The truth, at least so far as we know, is less impressive. Instead of world models, today’s generative AIs appear to learn “bags of heuristics”: scores of disconnected rules of thumb that can approximate responses to specific scenarios, but don’t cohere into a consistent whole. (Some may actually contradict each other.) It’s a lot like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, where each man only touches one part of the animal at a time and fails to apprehend its full form. One man feels the trunk and assumes the entire elephant is snakelike; another touches a leg and guesses it’s more like a tree; a third grasps the elephant’s tail and says it’s a rope. When researchers attempt to recover evidence of a world model from within an LLM — for example, a coherent computational representation of an Othello game board — they’re looking for the whole elephant. What they find instead is a bit of snake here, a chunk of tree there, and some rope.

    Of course, such heuristics are hardly worthless. LLMs can encode untold sackfuls of them within their trillions of parameters — and as the old saw goes, quantity has a quality all its own. That’s what makes it possible to train a language model to generate nearly perfect directions between any two points in Manhattan without learning a coherent world model of the entire street network in the process, as researchers from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently discovered.

    So if bits of snake, tree and rope can do the job, why bother with the elephant? In a word, robustness: When the researchers threw their Manhattan-navigating LLM a mild curveball by randomly blocking 1% of the streets, its performance cratered. If the AI had simply encoded a street map whose details were consistent — instead of an immensely complicated, corner-by-corner patchwork of conflicting best guesses — it could have easily rerouted around the obstructions.

    Given the benefits that even simple world models can confer, it’s easy to understand why every large AI lab is desperate to develop them — and why academic researchers are increasingly interested in scrutinizing them, too. Robust and verifiable world models could uncover, if not the El Dorado of AGI, then at least a scientifically plausible tool for extinguishing AI hallucinations, enabling reliable reasoning, and increasing the interpretability of AI systems.

    That’s the “what” and “why” of world models. The “how,” though, is still anyone’s guess. Google DeepMind and OpenAI are betting that with enough “multimodal” training data — like video, 3D simulations, and other input beyond mere text — a world model will spontaneously congeal within a neural network’s statistical soup. Meta’s LeCun, meanwhile, thinks that an entirely new (and non-generative) AI architecture will provide the necessary scaffolding. In the quest to build these computational snow globes, no one has a crystal ball — but the prize, for once, may just be worth the AGI hype.

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  • Comorbidities in pregnant South African women living with HIV and associations with adverse birth outcomes: a prospective cohort study | BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

    Comorbidities in pregnant South African women living with HIV and associations with adverse birth outcomes: a prospective cohort study | BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

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  • AMGEN INVESTING MORE THAN HALF A BILLION DOLLARS IN NEW, STATE-OF-THE-ART CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND INNOVATION AT U.S. GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS| Amgen

    AMGEN INVESTING MORE THAN HALF A BILLION DOLLARS IN NEW, STATE-OF-THE-ART CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND INNOVATION AT U.S. GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS| Amgen

    Research and Development Infrastructure Investment Expected to Create Hundreds of U.S. Jobs 

    THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., Sept. 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) today announced plans to invest more than $600 million in a new, state-of-the-art center for science and innovation at its global headquarters in Thousand Oaks, California.

    The center is designed to bring together researchers, engineers and scientists across disciplines to enhance collaboration and accelerate the discovery of next-generation therapeutics for patients with the most serious diseases. The building will feature advanced automation and digital capabilities, empowering scientists with the tools and environment needed to drive scientific excellence and advancements in biotechnology.

    Amgen‘s long-standing commitment to U.S. innovation and state-of-the-art operations is reflected in more than $40 billion invested in manufacturing and research and development since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. This investment includes over $5 billion in direct capital expenditures in the U.S. The enactment of pro-growth tax policies in TCJA, extended and reinforced by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, further facilitates Amgen‘s ability to invest domestically in cutting-edge science and manufacturing.

    “At Amgen, we’re continuing to invest in the future of American science and innovation,” said Robert A. Bradway, chairman and chief executive officer at Amgen. “This new center will empower our scientists with the tools and collaborative environment they need to shape the next era of scientific discovery and advance medicines that improve human health.”

    The new center for science and innovation enhances the company’s global network of sites, leveraging decades of operational expertise and technological advancements.

    Construction is expected to begin in Q3 2025 and create hundreds of U.S. jobs. Amgen has been headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California, part of the greater Los Angeles region, since the company’s founding more than 45 years ago.

    The announcement builds on other recent investments from the company including a $900 million expansion of its manufacturing facility in Central Ohio and a $1 billion investment to build a second manufacturing plant in Holly Springs, North Carolina.

    About Amgen 
    Amgen discovers, develops, manufactures and delivers innovative medicines to help millions of patients in their fight against some of the world’s toughest diseases. More than 40 years ago, Amgen helped to establish the biotechnology industry and remains on the cutting-edge of innovation, using technology and human genetic data to push beyond what’s known today. Amgen is advancing a broad and deep pipeline that builds on its existing portfolio of medicines to treat cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, inflammatory diseases and rare diseases.

    In 2024, Amgen was named one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company and one of “America’s Best Large Employers” by Forbes, among other external recognitions. Amgen is one of the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average®, and it is also part of the Nasdaq-100 Index®, which includes the largest and most innovative non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market based on market capitalization.

    For more information, visit Amgen.com and follow Amgen on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Threads. 

    Amgen Forward-Looking Statements
    This news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on the current expectations and beliefs of Amgen. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements on the outcome, benefits and synergies of collaborations, or potential collaborations, with any other company (including BeOne Medicines Ltd. or Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd.), the performance of Otezla® (apremilast), our acquisitions of ChemoCentryx, Inc. or Horizon Therapeutics plc (including the prospective performance and outlook of Horizon’s business, performance and opportunities, and any potential strategic benefits, synergies or opportunities expected as a result of such acquisition), as well as estimates of revenues, operating margins, capital expenditures, cash, other financial metrics, expected legal, arbitration, political, regulatory or clinical results or practices, customer and prescriber patterns or practices, reimbursement activities and outcomes, effects of pandemics or other widespread health problems on our business, outcomes, progress, and other such estimates and results. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, including those discussed below and more fully described in the Securities and Exchange Commission reports filed by Amgen, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent periodic reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. Unless otherwise noted, Amgen is providing this information as of the date of this news release and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

    No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual results may differ materially from those we project. Our results may be affected by our ability to successfully market both new and existing products domestically and internationally, clinical and regulatory developments involving current and future products, sales growth of recently launched products, competition from other products including biosimilars, difficulties or delays in manufacturing our products and global economic conditions, including those resulting from geopolitical relations and government actions. In addition, sales of our products are affected by pricing pressure, political and public scrutiny and reimbursement policies imposed by third-party payers, including governments, private insurance plans and managed care providers and may be affected by regulatory, clinical and guideline developments and domestic and international trends toward managed care and healthcare cost containment. Furthermore, our research, testing, pricing, marketing and other operations are subject to extensive regulation by domestic and foreign government regulatory authorities. We or others could identify safety, side effects or manufacturing problems with our products, including our devices, after they are on the market. Our business may be impacted by government investigations, litigation and product liability claims. In addition, our business may be impacted by the adoption of new tax legislation or exposure to additional tax liabilities. Further, while we routinely obtain patents for our products and technology, the protection offered by our patents and patent applications may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented by our competitors, or we may fail to prevail in present and future intellectual property litigation. We perform a substantial amount of our commercial manufacturing activities at a few key facilities, including in Puerto Rico, and also depend on third parties for a portion of our manufacturing activities, and limits on supply may constrain sales of certain of our current products and product candidate development. An outbreak of disease or similar public health threat, and the public and governmental effort to mitigate against the spread of such disease, could have a significant adverse effect on the supply of materials for our manufacturing activities, the distribution of our products, the commercialization of our product candidates, and our clinical trial operations, and any such events may have a material adverse effect on our product development, product sales, business and results of operations. We rely on collaborations with third parties for the development of some of our product candidates and for the commercialization and sales of some of our commercial products. In addition, we compete with other companies with respect to many of our marketed products as well as for the discovery and development of new products. Discovery or identification of new product candidates or development of new indications for existing products cannot be guaranteed and movement from concept to product is uncertain; consequently, there can be no guarantee that any particular product candidate or development of a new indication for an existing product will be successful and become a commercial product. Further, some raw materials, medical devices and component parts for our products are supplied by sole third-party suppliers. Certain of our distributors, customers and payers have substantial purchasing leverage in their dealings with us. The discovery of significant problems with a product similar to one of our products that implicate an entire class of products could have a material adverse effect on sales of the affected products and on our business and results of operations. Our efforts to collaborate with or acquire other companies, products or technology, and to integrate the operations of companies or to support the products or technology we have acquired, may not be successful. There can be no guarantee that we will be able to realize any of the strategic benefits, synergies or opportunities arising from the Horizon acquisition, and such benefits, synergies or opportunities may take longer to realize than expected. We may not be able to successfully integrate Horizon, and such integration may take longer, be more difficult or cost more than expected. A breakdown, cyberattack or information security breach of our information technology systems could compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our systems and our data. Our stock price is volatile and may be affected by a number of events. Our business and operations may be negatively affected by the failure, or perceived failure, of achieving our sustainability objectives. The effects of global climate change and related natural disasters could negatively affect our business and operations. Global economic conditions may magnify certain risks that affect our business. Our business performance could affect or limit the ability of our Board of Directors to declare a dividend or our ability to pay a dividend or repurchase our common stock. We may not be able to access the capital and credit markets on terms that are favorable to us, or at all.

    CONTACT: Amgen, Thousand Oaks Elissa Snook, 609-251-1407 (media)Adam Elinoff, 805-313-6285 (investors) 

    Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/amgen-investing-more-than-half-a-billion-dollars-in-new-state-of-the-art-center-for-science-and-innovation-at-us-global-headquarters-302542364.html

    SOURCE Amgen


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  • Humans inherited Neanderthal genes that limit our muscle activity

    Humans inherited Neanderthal genes that limit our muscle activity

    Most of us carry a small trace of Neanderthal ancestry and, in some cases, that legacy sits in our legs. A single change in a muscle enzyme can subtly throttle how hard muscles can work under pressure.

    People outside Africa typically carry about 2 percent Neanderthal DNA in their genomes, a result of ancient interbreeding between populations. That shared history still influences traits today, including how our muscles manage energy during all out effort.

    What the enzyme variant does


    In an influential 2017 study, lead author Dominik Macak from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI EVA), and colleagues, focused on AMPD1. This is an enzyme that helps skeletal muscle recycle energy-rich molecules during effort.

    In their new study, they show that Neanderthals carried a version of AMPD1 with lower activity than the typical modern human form.

    The team expressed both versions of the enzyme in cells and measured activity in a controlled setup. The Neanderthal version showed about a quarter less activity in test tubes, and when the change was engineered into mice, total AMPD activity measured in leg muscle extracts dropped sharply.

    How the muscle enzyme reached modern humans

    The variant appears in all sequenced Neanderthals and is absent in other primates, which points to a change specific to that lineage. Some modern humans carry the Neanderthal-derived form because of archaic introgression, the movement of DNA across populations through interbreeding.

    Today, the gene for this variant enzyme is found most often in Europe and Western Asia at modest frequencies. The pattern is consistent with gene flow into early modern humans who met Neanderthals around 50,000 years ago, interbred and then spread across Eurasia.

    From bench to muscle

    The lab assays matter because AMPD1 sits in a critical energy pathway known as the purine nucleotide cycle. When muscles need ATP (the molecule that provides power for cellular activities in all living organisms) in a hurry, AMPD1 helps pull the chemical levers that keep ATP production humming.

    In practice, the variant’s impact shows up most clearly when muscles are pushed. Mouse muscle carrying the engineered change showed large decreases in measured AMPD activity in extracts. In addition, prior case reports hint at reduced enzyme activity in rare human carriers with combined AMPD1 defects.

    Neanderthal muscle enzyme and sport

    The research also looked at athletic outcomes by using a well-known human knockout allele of AMPD1 as a stand in for reduced enzyme function. That analysis covered more than a thousand elite athletes across endurance and power disciplines.

    “Carrying one dysfunctional AMPD1 allele confers approximately a 50 percent lower probability of achieving elite athletic performance,” wrote Macak. The sentence sums up where the enzyme matters most, at the razor’s edge where physiology meets peak performance.

    Health signals to watch

    Reduced AMPD1 activity is common in clinic genetics, yet many carriers feel fine most of the time. The clinical picture of myoadenylate deaminase deficiency (MAD) ranges from exercise-induced cramps and early fatigue to no symptoms, a pattern known as incomplete penetrance.

    Large data resources add nuance. Biobank analyses suggest a small increase in risk for varicose veins among people with AMPD1 variants that reduce activity, although replication across cohorts is mixed and the absolute risk increase is modest.

    Why the Neanderthal muscle enzyme stuck around

    If reduced enzyme activity can hinder elite performance, why did the variant enzyme persist. One likely factor is relaxed purifying selection, which occurs when a gene becomes less crucial for day-to-day survival across a population.

    Another possibility is that culture and technology reduced the constant demand for extreme muscle output. If everyday life did not require maximum sprint power or heavy loads, then a small energetic inefficiency would be tolerated.

    What counts as a meaningful effect

    The findings do not imply that someone with the variant cannot excel at sports or live a healthy life. Most carriers have no obvious health problems, and plenty of other genes and training factors shape performance.

    Still, the enzyme’s role appears during stress. When energy turnover spikes, AMPD1 helps buffer the system, and slightly less activity can tip the balance in high stakes settings like championship level competition.

    A closer look at enzyme chemistry

    To keep terms clear, an enzyme is a protein catalyst that speeds up chemical reactions in cells. Purine molecules are key building blocks for DNA and RNA, and they also form ATP, the energy currency that pays for muscle contractions.

    An allele is one version of a gene among alternatives, and the Neanderthal-derived allele in AMPD1 swaps one amino acid in a position that helps the enzyme’s subunits stick together. That subtle change lowers catalytic efficiency without removing the protein entirely.

    A bigger shift in energy chemistry

    This is not the first sign that energy metabolism took a different path in humans when compared to other primates. Earlier work found that modern humans carry a unique change in another enzyme, ADSL, which tunes the same pathway and is linked to lower purine levels in key tissues, especially the brain.

    Together, these threads suggest that parts of our energy machinery became less dependent on certain purine reactions over evolutionary time. The Neanderthal AMPD1 story adds a muscle-specific chapter and ties it directly to present day physiology.

    Where this leaves us

    The signal here is not alarm, it is perspective. Daily life proceeds as usual for almost everyone who carries the muscle enzyme variant. However, a centuries-old interbreeding event still leaves a fingerprint on who is more likely to reach the top tier of sport.

    This work also emphasizes why population history matters in medicine and performance science. Small shifts in enzyme activity, inherited across tens of thousands of years, can still modulate outcomes when humans are pushed to the limit.

    The study is published in Nature Communications.

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  • Racket Rivals Codes (September 2025)

    Racket Rivals Codes (September 2025)

    Update: added new Racket Rivals codes on September 2, 2025

    Being a fan of legends like Lin Dan and Saina Nehwal, I’ve always loved playing badminton in real life. But as time went on, I wanted a digital smash fest, and Roblox Racket Rivals serves exactly that. You dive into a badminton world where rackets, skills, and awakenings decide your fate. To make things easier, we’ve rounded up the latest Racket Rivals codes that hand out free lucky spins, awakening spins, and other goodies. Use them to snag top-tier rackets, awakenings, and build the ultimate loadout.

    All New Racket Rivals Codes

    • sorryreboot: 1 Lucky Spin (NEW)
    • SL3EPY: 1 Awakening Spin (NEW)

    Expired Racket Rivals Codes

    Right now, there are no expired codes in the game, so I would suggest that you get the rewards from the existing ones before they go away.

    Fans of all sorts of anime sports games might enjoy Volleyball Legends, Basketball Zero, while soccer fans can dive into Blue Lock Rivals. For some fresh experiences, check out our Roblox game codes master list. Want some RPG action? Get into Type Soul or Blox Fruits.

    How to Redeem Racket Rivals Codes

    Scoring some points in Racket Rivals is easy, but before you get faster, you must learn how to get the free rewards. Follow the step-by-step process below and redeem the codes for Racket Rivals:

    • Launch the Racket Rivals app on Roblox.
    • Open the Shop menu from the bottom of the screen.
    • Select the Codes option on the top right of the ‘Shop’ menu.
    • Input a working code and click the Submit button.

    How to Get More Racket Rivals Codes

    When it comes to gathering the latest codes, we follow the title of the anime. Yes, if you are looking for the codes right as they arrive, our page is your best option. We frequently update the codes list with the new ones and move the expired ones. So, bookmark this page and stay on top of the codes always.

    If you still want to hunt down all the codes for Racket Rivals, yourself, follow the official social media accounts for the game. The best place to find them is the Racket Rivals Discord server. The new codes are often shared in the update-logs channel. However, the moderators compile the codes and post them in the showcase channel as well.

    Want more updates about the game and some more freebies? You can follow the ⨯ Small World Games Roblox community and get more rewards.

    Ishan Adhikary

    A gaming nerd who covers all things video games. Spending time playing games and writing about them was always a dream. Thanks to Beebom, I live it. Once I am done gaming, I write. Once I am done writing, I game. You feel me.


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  • Scientists Uncover Hidden Megathrust That Could Trigger Massive Earthquakes

    Scientists Uncover Hidden Megathrust That Could Trigger Massive Earthquakes

    Scientists have captured the first detailed images of the Queen Charlotte fault system offshore Haida Gwaii, revealing that the region has the potential to unleash powerful megathrust earthquakes. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

    Scientists used advanced hydrophone technology to image the Queen Charlotte fault, confirming its potential for destructive megathrust earthquakes.

    New research on the Queen Charlotte fault system has produced the first images of its subsurface structure off the coast of Haida Gwaii, confirming that northern British Columbia is capable of generating megathrust earthquakes.

    These types of earthquakes occur where one tectonic plate is forced beneath another—in this case, the Pacific plate being driven under the North American plate—and they are known for producing both intense shaking and tsunamis.

    Advanced hydrophone technology

    An international team of scientists from American and Canadian institutions, including Dalhousie University, collected the data using a 15-kilometre-long hydrophone streamer. This instrument, equipped with thousands of underwater microphones, was towed through the region to capture seismic signals and map the deep structure of Earth’s crust.

    Map Showing Queen Charlotte Fault and Surrounding Tectonic Plates
    Map of the study area, showing the location of the Queen Charlotte Fault (QCF) in relation to the Pacific (PAC), North America (NA), Yakutat (YAK), Explorer (EXP) and Juan De Fuca (JdF) tectonic plates. Credit: 10.1126/sciadv.adt3003

    The findings, published in Science Advances, present the first definitive evidence that the Pacific plate is beginning to collide with and subduct beneath the North American plate in the Haida Gwaii area. In practical terms, this means the region has the potential to generate earthquakes capable of both strong ground shaking and destructive tsunamis.

    In fact, the Queen Charlotte fault system represents the greatest seismic hazard in Canada, producing the country’s largest recorded earthquake in 1949.

    “This region is actively becoming a subduction zone, so understanding the fault structure here tells us about the early stages of subduction zone development,” says lead author Collin Brandl, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Columbia Climate School.

    “Our study provides the first direct observations of the Haida Gwaii thrust, the “megathrust” of this system, which can help improve hazard analysis in the region, better preparing residents for future earthquakes and tsunamis.”

    Reference: “Seismic imaging reveals a strain-partitioned sliver and nascent megathrust at an incipient subduction zone in the northeast Pacific” by Collin C. Brandl, Lindsay L. Worthington, Emily C. Roland, Maureen A. L. Walton, Mladen R. Nedimović, Andrew C. Gase, Olumide Adedeji, Jose Castillo Castellanos, Benjamin J. Phrampus, Michael G. Bostock, Kelin Wang and Sarah Jaye Oliva, 18 July 2025, Science Advances.
    DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt3003

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  • Earth’s violent birth: What it takes to make a living world

    Earth’s violent birth: What it takes to make a living world

    Earth today is teeming with life. We have oceans, breathable air, and the perfect combination of chemical ingredients necessary for living organisms to thrive. But when Earth first started forming, it lacked some of the most fundamental elements required for life.

    So how did our world transition from being barren and inhospitable to what it is today?


    A team of scientists just found new clues that show Earth’s original mix of elements was complete surprisingly early – only a short time after the solar system came together.

    Formation of the solar system

    When the solar system began to form billions of years ago, it emerged from a gigantic cloud of gas and dust. This cloud contained important elements such as hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur – chemicals essential for life.

    Not everything in the solar system was equally formed, though. The inner zone, the region nearest the Sun, was extremely hot.

    Due to this heat, most of the life-critical components never condensed into solid form. Instead, they remained in the form of gas and didn’t persist long enough to become part of the rocky material that formed the tiny inner worlds such as Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

    As a result, early Earth was built mostly from dry, rocky stuff. It missed out on a lot of the “wet” ingredients that came from the cooler, outer parts of the solar system.

    The puzzle of life on Earth

    Scientists have long wondered when Earth picked up the materials that would one day allow life to appear. If the inner solar system didn’t have them, then they had to come from somewhere else. And if they came later, when exactly did that happen?

    That’s what scientists at the University of Bern’s Institute of Geological Sciences wanted to know. They analyzed rocks from ancient Earth and meteorites, using radioactive isotopes to calculate time with astonishing accuracy.

    “A high-precision time measurement system based on the radioactive decay of manganese-53 was used to determine the precise age. This isotope was present in the early solar system and decayed to chromium-53 with a half-life of around 3.8 million years,” said Dr. Pascal Kruttasch, who led the study.

    The team’s method allowed them to measure ages with less than a million years of error – even on materials that are billions of years old.

    “These measurements were only possible because the University of Bern has internationally recognized expertise and infrastructure for the analysis of extraterrestrial materials and is a leader in the field of isotope geochemistry,” noted Klaus Mezger, co-author of the study.

    Earth’s chemistry was locked in fast

    The team found that Earth’s chemical signature – the unique mix of elements that made up the young planet – was complete in less than 3 million years after the solar system formed.

    “Our solar system formed around 4,568 million years ago. Considering that it only took up to 3 million years to determine the chemical properties of Earth, this is surprisingly fast,” said Kruttasch.

    “Thanks to our results, we know that the proto-Earth was initially a dry rocky planet. It can therefore be assumed that it was only the collision with Theia that brought volatile elements to Earth and ultimately made life possible there,” explained Kruttasch.

    The collision that changed everything

    Scientists have long believed that Earth was hit by a planet-sized object called Theia early in its history. This impact is also what likely created the Moon.

    However, this study adds something new: evidence that Theia may have delivered the materials that made Earth capable of supporting life.

    Theia likely formed farther from the Sun, where cooler temperatures allowed water and other volatiles to collect. When it slammed into Earth, it didn’t just shake things up – it may have delivered the very elements we needed to build oceans, an atmosphere, and the chemistry of life.

    “The Earth does not owe its current life-friendliness to a continuous development, but probably to a chance event – the late impact of a foreign, water-rich body. This makes it clear that life-friendliness in the universe is anything but a matter of course,” said Mezger.

    What this means for other planets

    If Earth only became habitable thanks to a lucky collision, that has big implications for other planets – both in our solar system and beyond.

    Even if a rocky planet forms in the right zone around its star, it might not be enough. The timing and location of volatile delivery, plus the exact kind of collision, may all play a role. And those things don’t happen everywhere.

    It’s possible that many planets stay dry forever. Others might get hit too hard or too often. Earth’s path may not be typical – it may be one of the rare cases where the right ingredients arrived at the right time, in just the right way.

    Understanding Earth’s massive collision

    We still don’t fully understand what happened during that massive collision between proto-Earth and Theia. Kruttasch and his team want to explore the event further.

    “So far, this collision event is insufficiently understood. Models are needed that can fully explain not only the physical properties of the Earth and moon, but also their chemical composition and isotope signatures,” Kruttasch said.

    In other words, scientists still need to untangle the chemistry of Earth and its satellite. The Moon and Earth share strikingly similar chemical fingerprints – a mystery that challenges the idea of a foreign body like Theia delivering the missing ingredients for life.

    If Theia really formed farther from the Sun, where water and volatile elements were abundant, why don’t those differences show up more clearly in the Moon’s composition?

    Future research could help answer that question – and may also help us figure out how common this kind of planet-forming “recipe” is in the universe.

    The full study was published in the journal Science Advances.

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  • François Ozon Talks Golden Lion Contender ‘The Stranger’

    François Ozon Talks Golden Lion Contender ‘The Stranger’

    Prolific French director François Ozon touched down in Venice on Tuesday with his adaptation of Albert  Camus’s absurdist classic The Stranger about a French expat living in colonial 1930s French Algeria who indifferently kills a local man.

    It is the third fiction adaption of the novella after the 1967 version by Luchino Visconti, starring Marcello Mastroianni, and 2001 Turkish film Fate, which played in Cannes Un Certain Regard.

    Anticipation is riding high on the Lido as to whether Ozon has pulled it off with his black-and-white adaptation, starring Benjamin Voisin as protagonist Meursault and Rebecca Varder as his lover.

    At the press conference for the Golden Lion contender, Ozon revealed he had hit on the idea of adapting The Stranger after failing to secure financing for a project following a young man in the wake of a failed suicide attempt.

    The director said that like most people in France, he had read the novella when he was a high school student, but had found fresh meaning when he came back to it later in later life.  

    “Maybe I understood it a little better than when I read it as a teenager and at the same time there were a lot of things that I didn’t understand in the book that fascinated me,” said Ozon.

    “I started in a somewhat carefree way and at the same time a little anxious because everyone around me was saying to me, ‘It’s my favorite book. I’m curious to see what you’re going to do’. That put pressure on.”

    Ozon said he decided very quickly that he would revisit the story with a modern perspective rather than – as Visconti had done – with gaze of the time of its writing in 1939 and publication in 1942 when France still occupied Algeria.  

    “The most important thing right away is the first sentence of the book, which is extremely well-known and everyone remembers, ‘Mother is dead, maybe it was yesterday’,” said Ozon.

    “But in fact, it wasn’t this sentence that shocked me today, that surprised me. It was rather a sentence that appears in the second part of the book, when Meursault returns to prison and says, ‘I killed an Arab’.”

    “I said to myself, there you go, this is the key to my adaptation. Contextualize this story about French colonization and try to understand Meursault’s character by following Camus’s book as faithfully as possible.”

    Ozon said his decision to making the film in black and white was both artistic and financial.

    “Since it’s a philosophical book, it seemed to me that black and white was ideal for telling this story, being free of color, it’s a form of purity… it was also a financial choice. It’s not an American blockbuster and I didn’t have the means to recreate the 1930s in Algiers, so it allowed me to simplify a lot of the sets,” he explained.

    The film was shot in color and then converted into black and white. Ozon said the end result was a pleasant surprise.

    “It makes everything absolutely magnificent and awakens the cinephile in us because all of a sudden, when I saw Rebecca in a white swimsuit on the beach, I said to myself, it’s Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer, or Benjamin walking in the streets, I had the impression of seeing James Stewart or Cary Grant.”

    Ozon, who has delivered a film every year for the past decade, was asked where his drive came from at a time when it was increasingly hard to get feature films financed and over the line.

    “There’s a quote from Camus: ‘To create is to live twice’.  Well, to make a film is to live twice. Journalists often say to me, ‘You can’t have time to live because you’re always making films,” said Ozon.

    “On the contrary, I believe that I live twice as much because I make films… to create, to tell a story, to work with a team, because it’s truly a collective effort, is the most powerful thing.”

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  • Bath’s Holburne museum to unveil ‘art chamber’ of Renaissance masterpieces | Museums

    Bath’s Holburne museum to unveil ‘art chamber’ of Renaissance masterpieces | Museums

    Beneath the Georgian city of Bath, a gleaming treasury of Renaissance masterpieces created for kings, queens, church leaders and scientists is about to be unveiled.

    Based on the idea of the Renaissance kunstkammer – an art chamber – the basement room at the Holburne Museum is crammed with scores of exquisite pieces of silverware, paintings, bronzes and ceramics.

    They include an astonishing model of a silver ship, a rare mechanical celestial globe and a bronze vessel likely to have belonged to Henry VIII.

    A bronze vessel likely to have belonged to Henry VIII. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

    “It’s wonderful having pieces here that you’d usually see in places like the Met in New York or the British Museum,” said Chris Stephens, director of the Holburne.

    The treasures were collected over many decades by the Schroder family, who made their fortune as merchants and bankers, and have been loaned to the Holburne for at least 20 years.

    A £2m gallery has been created out of two store rooms to show off the objects, which have never been brought together in one place before.

    The relationship between the Holburne and the Schroders began about five years ago when the family’s art curator wondered if the museum would like to borrow a few of the family’s Renaissance paintings.

    Stephens boldly asked if they could possibly loan all of them. “I thought they’d say no but they were delighted and we turned my office into a gallery for them.”

    The family then offered the Holburne other Renaissance treasures and the idea of creating Bath’s very own kunstkammer emerged.

    Stephens said: “The key decision was to have everything in there together, not to separate the different art forms. That created the sense of the kunstkammer, the Renaissance idea in which wealthy people would bring together exotic items from around the world.”

    Among the highlights of the collection is a celestial globe commissioned in the 16th century by one of the earliest modern astronomers, Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassel.

    A celestial globe commissioned in the 16th century. ‘It’s like those apps of the night sky you get that tell you which stars you are looking at.’ Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

    When it was wound up, the globe turned to show the position of constellations. “It’s like those apps of the night sky you get that tell you which stars you are looking at,” Stephens said. “It was made in the 1570s. To have that level of precision and complexity and so many moving points is awesome.”

    The silver ship – the Schwarzenberg Nef – was created in about 1580. It is a ceremonial ewer – a pitcher or jug – that could be filled with drink through a hole in the deck with the spout concealed within the bow. “It’s miraculous,” said Stephens, pointing out details such as the rigging billowing out with the weight of a crew member and the hefty chicken on a plate in the captain’s cabin.

    It is not certain that Henry VIII handled the bronze cup that appears in another cabinet, but the signs are that it was his – one of his inventories describes such a vessel weighing exactly the same as this one.

    Most of the objects were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They have been held at various homes and offices owned by members of the Schroder family.

    The only collection comparable to Bath’s new kunstkammer, Stephens said, was the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum, a collection of Renaissance treasures collected by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild. “What’s really exciting is to see all these objects brought together in one place. It’s extraordinary, really.”

    The Schroder Gallery opens to the public on 10 September 2025

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