Winning image: Rice weevil (Sitophilus oryzae) on a grain of rice  

Credit: Zhang You/Nikon Small World

A stunning image of a rice weevil on a single grain of rice has won the 2025 Nikon Small World photomicrography contest, yielding valuable insight into the structure and behavior of—and providing a fresh perspective on—this well-known agricultural pest. The image was taken by Zhang You of Yunnan, China. Another of You's photographs placed 15th in this year's contest.

“It pays to dive deep into entomology: understanding insects’ behaviors and mastering lighting," You said in a statement. "A standout work blends artistry with scientific rigor, capturing the very essence, energy, and spirit of these creatures.”

There was an element of luck in creating his winning image, too. "I had observed rice weevils in grains before, but never one with its wings spread," You said. "This one was naturally preserved on a windowsill, perhaps in a final attempt to escape. Its tiny size makes manually preparing spread-wing specimens extremely difficult, so encountering it was both serendipitous and inspiring.”

Nikon's annual contest was founded in 1974 "to showcase the beauty and complexity of things seen through the light microscope." Photomicrography involves attaching a camera to a microscope (either an optical microscope or an electron microscope) so that the user can take photographs of objects at very high resolutions. British physiologist Richard Hill Norris was one of the first to use it for his studies of blood cells in 1850, and the method has increasingly been highlighted as art since the 1970s. There have been many groundbreaking technological advances in the ensuing decades, particularly with the advent of digital imaging methods.

This year's competition received over 1,900 submissions from 77 countries; a panel of judges evaluated the submissions based on originality, informational content, technical proficiency, and visual impact. Featured below are the remaining top 20 winners of this year's contest, with subjects ranging from rat liver cells, sunflower trichomes, and slime molds releasing spores, to a moth laying eggs and a parasitic fungus invading a fly, among other microscopic marvels. You can check out the full list of winners, as well as several honorable mentions, here. The 2025 winners for the video competition can be found here.

The winners’ circle

Second place: Colonial algae (Volvox) spheres in a drop of water.

Jan Rosenboom/Nikon Small World

 

Third place: Pollen in a garden spiderweb.

John-Oliver Dum/Nikon Small World

 

Fourth place: Heart muscle cells with chromosomes condensed following cell division.

James Hayes/Nikon Small World

 

Fifth place: Spores (blue/purple structures) of a small tropical fern (Ceratopteris richardii).

Igor Siwanowicz/Nikon Small World

 

Sixth place: Rat liver cells.

Francisco Lázaro-Diéguez/Nikon Small World

 

Seventh place: iPSC-derived sensory neurons labeled to show tubulin and actin.

Stella Whittaker/Nikon Small World

 

Eighth place: Mallow pollen germinating on stigma while being parasitized by a filamentous fungus.

Igor Siwanowicz/Nikon Small World

 

Ninth place: A fungus (Talaromyces purpureogenus) known for its red, diffused pigment.

Wim van Egmond/Nikon Small World

 

10th place: Heart muscle cells (iPSC-derived) showing condensed chromosomes in metaphase.

Dylan Burnette & James Hayes/Nikon Small World

 

11th place: Sunflower trichomes (hair-like plant outgrowths).

Marek Miś/Nikon Small World

 

12th place: The actin cytoskeleton (cyan) and endoplasmic reticulum (red) of a mouse brain cancer cell.

Halli Lindamood & Eric Vitriol/Nikon Small World

 

13th place: Slime mold (Arcyria major) releasing spores.

Henri Koskinen/Nikon Small World

 

14th place: Quartz with biotic goethite filaments.

Manfred Heising/Nikon Small World

 

15th place: Geometer moth (Geometridae) laying eggs.

Zhang You/Nikon Small World

 

16th place: Spore sacs (sporangia) of a fern.

Rogelio Moreno/Nikon Small World

 

17th place: Water fleas (Daphnia) and algae.

Hong Guo/Nikon Small World

 

18th place: Fluorescently marked mouse colon.

Marius Mählen, Koen Oost, Prisca Liberali & Laurent Gelman/Nikon Small World

 

19th place: Parasitic fungus (Cordycipitaceae) on a fly (Calliphoridae).

Eduardo Agustin Carrasco/Nikon Small World

 

20th place: Marine copepod.

Zachary Sanchez/Nikon Small World

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Posted Thursday 16 October 2025 at 12:28 pm AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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With the expansion into London, Moove and Waymo will work together to lay the groundwork for Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing service in London. This strategic partnership will “continue to shape the future of mobility” and ensure safe, efficient, and sustainable fully autonomous ride-hailing.

"We're excited by a future where Waymo's safe and reliable autonomous technology is available in London, transforming how the capital moves," said Ladi Delano, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Moove. "This partnership represents a major step forward for urban mobility, bringing world-class innovation to one of the world's greatest cities."

“We’re thrilled to bring the reliability, safety and magic of Waymo to Londoners,” said Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. “Waymo is making roads safer and transportation more accessible where we operate. We’ve demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can’t wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom.”

Waymo’s expansion to London will give people a new option on top of the extensive network of buses, tubes, bikes, and pedestrian options. To hail a ride, users will need to install the Waymo app and summon a vehicle.

Waymo’s launch in the UK has been hailed by road safety and blind and partially sighted people advocates. Those who care for road safety noted that the lack of human drivers has the potential to improve safety. At the same time, an advocate for the blind said that the vehicles would enable independent mobility options.

Source: Waymo and Moove

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Posted Thursday 16 October 2025 at 3:30 am AEST (my time).

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A team of researchers led by Professor Emeritus Takuji Hoshino at Okayama University of Science (OUS) has developed a new wine grape variety called “Muscat Shiragai.” The grape was produced by crossing the wild Shiraga grape, which naturally grows only along the Takahashi River basin in Okayama Prefecture, with the well-known Muscat of Alexandria.

The group has submitted the new variety for official registration with Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), and the application has been formally accepted.

During a press conference at OUS, Professor Hoshino explained, “I wanted to create a wine grape that incorporates wild genetic traits. If this grape becomes widely cultivated and its wine contributes to regional revitalization and tourism, that would be the best outcome.”

Professor Hoshino, an expert in plant systematics, became the founding director of OUS’s Institute of Viticulture and Enology in April 2017. Working in collaboration with Funao Winery in Kurashiki City, he began studying the Shiraga grape, a rare and endangered native species found only in small parts of Okayama Prefecture.

This partnership inspired the vision of developing a distinctively “Okayama-born” wine grape through a cross with Muscat of Alexandria.

Launching the Project

In February 2018, OUS signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Kurashiki City and Funao Winery, launching the project as part of a national government–recognized regional revitalization initiative to promote “branding of local resources.”

The fruit and wine of the newly developed grape “Muscat Shiragai,” presented at a press conference by Professor Emeritus Takuji Hoshino (right). From left to right above: Kurashiki Deputy Mayor Kenji Komatsu, OUS President Hiroyuki Hirano, and Funao Winery CEO Kenichiro Miyake. Credit: Okayama University of Science

By fiscal year 2022, wines were being brewed from different breeding lines and evaluated for sugar content, acidity, pH, and taste, leading to the selection of promising strains. Drawing on these trial results, the new “Muscat Shiragai” variety was finalized in 2024.

The official application for new variety registration was jointly filed by Kake Educational Institution and Kurashiki City in December 2024 and was publicly announced in June 2025. The official registration is expected within four to five years.

Presentation and Tasting Event

The press conference, held at the Presentation Room in OUS Building A1, was attended by Kurashiki Deputy Mayor Kenji Komatsu, Funao Winery CEO Kenichiro Miyake, and OUS President Hiroyuki Hirano. Participants sampled the Muscat Shiragai grapes and wine, which were well received—described as “sweet and very delicious” for the fruit, and “with a subtle Muscat aroma and smooth drinking quality” for the wine.

Deputy Mayor Komatsu commented: “We are very much looking forward to offering a wine filled with the unique charm that can only be produced in Kurashiki. We also anticipate further research results to refine Muscat Shiragai into an even more sophisticated grape.”

CEO Miyake added: “With Muscat Shiragai as a branded grape, we hope to create a new high-value red wine identified with Kurashiki as its place of origin. Please look forward to the day when we can bring this to market.”

President Hirano noted: “Collaboration among industry, academia, and government is essential for building innovative local communities. OUS will continue integrating education and research, returning the results to the community, and contributing to solving regional and social issues.”

Currently, 20 vines are cultivated at Funao Winery and the OUS vineyard, yielding 41.6 kilograms in 2024. An additional 300 grafted vines were planted at the end of fiscal year 2023, with a goal of harvesting more than 500 kilograms by 2028–2029. The team also plans to optimize practices such as leaf removal, fertilization, and irrigation to further improve quality.

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Summary: A new human liver organoid microarray developed by Cincinnati Children’s and Roche recreates immune-driven liver injury in the lab. Built from patient-derived stem cells and immune cells, it accurately models how genetics influence drug reactions. The system replicated flucloxacillin-related toxicity seen only in people with a specific genetic variant, marking a major step toward predictive, patient-tailored drug safety testing. 

Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, working in partnership with Roche, have created a next-generation human liver organoid microarray platform designed to predict which medications might trigger harmful immune responses in certain individuals.

The findings, published online on Sept. 26, 2025, in Advanced Science, describe a fully human, miniaturized liver system developed from stem cells and a patient's own immune cells. This advanced model provides a new way to study why some people suffer severe immune-related liver injuries from drugs that are otherwise considered safe. Co-first author Fadoua El Abdellaoui Soussi, PhD, and corresponding author Magdalena Kasendra, PhD, both from the Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM) at Cincinnati Children's, led the research.

"Our goal was to create a human system that captures how the liver and immune system interact in patients," El Abdellaoui Soussi says. "By integrating patient-specific genetics and immune responses, we can finally begin to explain why certain drugs cause liver injury in only a small subset of individuals."

A model that replicates immune-related liver injury

Certain drugs that pass traditional safety testing can still trigger idiosyncratic drug-induced liver injury (iDILI), a rare but serious immune reaction that can cause severe illness or force a drug to be withdrawn. Standard laboratory and animal models have long struggled to reproduce these complex immune responses that vary from person to person.

The new platform closes this gap by combining liver organoids made from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with each donor's own CD8⁺ T cells, which are immune cells that target infected or damaged tissue. The result is a fully human, immune-competent system that reflects both the genetic and immune diversity found in real patients.

As proof of concept, the researchers recreated the liver damage caused by the antibiotic flucloxacillin, which occurs only in individuals who carry the HLA-B*57:01 risk gene. Their model accurately reproduced the biological signs of immune-related liver injury, including T cell activation, cytokine release, and liver cell damage, closely mirroring what happens in susceptible people.

"Our goal has always been to bring human biology into the lab in a way that's scalable, reproducible, and meaningful for patients," says Kasendra, who serves as director of research and development at CuSTOM. "By linking foundational stem cell science with applied toxicology, this model moves organoid research another step closer to transforming how drugs are developed and tested."

Building on a foundation of organoid innovation

This new platform expands on previous work by co-author Takanori Takebe, MD, PhD, whose lab developed methods for reliably generating human liver organoids from iPSCs. By refining these techniques into a matrix-free microarray system and pairing them with patient-specific immune cells, the CuSTOM Accelerator team at Cincinnati Children's turned a scientific breakthrough into a scalable precision toxicology tool.

The collaboration with Roche played a key role in the project's success, combining the hospital's scientific expertise with Roche's experience in translational toxicology.

"This partnership shows the power of combining academic innovation with industry experience," says Adrian Roth, PhD, principal scientific director of Personalized Healthcare Safety at Roche. "Together we're building predictive human models that can improve patient safety and accelerate the development of new medicines."

A growing ecosystem for organoid medicine

Cincinnati Children's has been a global leader in organoid medicine since 2010, when its scientists created the first functional human intestinal organoids.

Under Kasendra's leadership, the CuSTOM Accelerator partners with biopharma and technology companies to translate these scientific advances into real-world solutions for drug safety, precision medicine, and regenerative therapy.

What's next

The CuSTOM Accelerator team continues working to automate organoid assays and enable high-throughput screening across large, genetically diverse donor populations. This next phase will allow researchers to capture the full spectrum of human variability -- an essential step toward developing therapies that are more effective, inclusive, and personalized.

Learn more about CuSTOM's ongoing collaboration with Molecular Devices and Danaher: Collaboration to Develop Liver Organoids for Drug Toxicity Screening -- Research Horizons

"This work reflects the vision of CuSTOM -- to turn human organoid science into practical tools that improve health," Kasendra says, "This is just the beginning -- by bridging biology, engineering, and clinical insight, we're getting closer to predicting how real patients will respond to new treatments before they ever reach the clinic."

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SpaceX closed a troubled but instructive chapter in its Starship rocket program Monday with a near-perfect test flight that carried the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world from South Texas to the Indian Ocean.

The rocket's 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines roared to life at 6:23 pm CDT (7:23 pm EDT; 23:23 UTC), throttling up to generate some 16.7 million pounds of thrust, by large measure more powerful than any rocket before Starship. Moments later, the 404-foot-tall (123.1-meter) rocket began a vertical climb away from SpaceX's test site in Starbase, Texas, near the US-Mexico border.

From then on, the rocket executed its flight plan like clockwork. This was arguably SpaceX's most successful Starship test flight to date. The only flight with a similar claim occurred one year ago Monday, when the company caught the rocket's Super Heavy booster back at the launch pad after soaring to the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere. But that flight didn't accomplish as much in space.

"Starship's eleventh flight test reached every objective, providing valuable data as we prepare the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy," SpaceX posted on X.

SpaceX didn't try to recover the Super Heavy booster on this flight, but the goals the company set before the launch included an attempt to guide the enormous rocket stage to a precise splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of South Texas. The booster, reused from a previous flight in March, also validated a new engine configuration for its landing burn, first reigniting 13 of its engines, then downshifting to five, then to three for the final hover.

That all worked, along with pretty much everything else apart from an indication on SpaceX's livestream that Starship's Super Heavy booster stage lost an engine early in its descent. The malfunctioning engine had no impact on the rest of the flight.

Flight 11 recap

This was the fifth and final flight of Starship's second-generation configuration, known as Version 2, or V2. It was the 11th full-scale Starship test flight overall.

It took a while for Starship V2 to meet SpaceX's expectations. The first three Starship V2 launches in January, March, and May ended prematurely due to problems in the rocket's propulsion and a fuel leak, breaking a string of increasingly successful Starship flights since 2023. Another Starship V2 exploded on a test stand in Texas in June, further marring the second-gen rocket's track record.

But SpaceX teams righted the program with a good test flight in August, the first time Starship V2 made it all the way to splashdown. Engineers learned a few lessons on that flight, including the inadequacy of a new metallic heat shield tile design that left a patch of orange oxidation down the side of the ship. They also found that another experiment with part of the ship's heat shield showed promising results. This method involved using a soft "crunch wrap" material to seal the gaps between the ship's ceramic tiles and prevent super-heated plasma from reaching the rocket's stainless steel skin.

Technicians installed the crunch wrap material in more places for Flight 11, and a first look at the performance of the ship during reentry and splashdown suggested the heat shield change worked well.

After reaching space, Starship shut down its six Raptor engines and coasted across the Atlantic Ocean and Africa before emerging over the Indian Ocean just before reentry. During its time in space, Starship released eight Starlink satellite mockups mimicking the larger size of the company's next-generation Starlink spacecraft. These new Starlink satellites will only be able to launch on Starship.

Starship also reignited one of its six engines for a brief maneuver to set up the ship's trajectory for reentry. With that, the stage was set for the final act of the test flight. How would the latest version of SpaceX's ever-changing heat shield design hold up against temperatures of 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius)?

The answer: Apparently quite well. While SpaceX has brought Starships back to Earth in one piece several times, this was the first time the ship made it through reentry relatively unscathed. Live video streaming from cameras onboard Starship showed a blanket of orange and purple plasma enveloping the rocket during reentry. This is now a familiar sight, thanks to connectivity with Starship through SpaceX's Starlink broadband network.

What was different on Monday was the lack of any obvious damage to the heat shield or flaps throughout Starship's descent, a promising sign for SpaceX's chances of reusing the vehicle and its heat shield over and over again, without requiring any refurbishment. This, according to SpaceX's Elon Musk, is the acid test for determining Starship's overall success.

In the closing moments of Monday's flight, Starship flexed its flaps to perform a "dynamic banking maneuver" over the Indian Ocean, then flipped upright and fired its engines to slow for splashdown, simulating maneuvers the rocket will execute on future missions returning to the launch site. That will be one of the chief goals for the next phase of Starship's test campaign beginning next year.

Patience for V3

It will likely be at least a few months before SpaceX is ready to launch the next Starship flight. Technicians at Starbase are assembling the next Super Heavy booster and the first Starship V3 vehicle. Once integrated, the booster and ship are expected to undergo cryogenic testing and static-fire testing before SpaceX moves forward with launch.

"Focus now turns to the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy, with multiple vehicles currently in active build and preparing for tests," SpaceX wrote on its website. "This next iteration will be used for the first Starship orbital flights, operational payload missions, propellant transfer, and more as we iterate to a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle with service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond."

Starship V3 will have larger propellant tanks to increase the rocket's lifting capacity, upgraded Raptor 3 engines, and an improved payload compartment to support launches of real Starlink satellites. SpaceX will also use this version of the rocket for orbital refueling experiments, a long-awaited milestone for the Starship program now planned for sometime next year. Orbital refueling is a crucial enabler for future Starship flights beyond low-Earth orbit and is necessary for SpaceX to fulfill Musk's ambition to send ships to Mars, the founder's long-held goal for the company.

It's also required for Starship flights to the Moon. NASA has signed contracts with SpaceX worth more than $4 billion to develop a human-rated derivative of Starship to land astronauts on the Moon as part of the agency's Artemis program. The orbital refueling demonstration is a key milestone on the NASA lunar lander contract. Getting this done as soon as possible is vitally important to NASA, which is seeing its Artemis Moon landing schedule slip, in part due to Starship delays.

None of it can really get started until Starship V3 is flying reliably and flying often. If the first Starship V3 flight goes well, SpaceX may attempt to put the next vehicle—Flight 13—into orbit to verify the ship's endurance in space. At some point, SpaceX will make the first attempt to bring a ship home from orbit for a catch by the launch tower, similar to how SpaceX has caught Super Heavy boosters returning from the edge of space.

But first, ground crews are wrapping up work on a second Starship launch pad designed to accommodate the upgraded, taller Starship V3 rocket. Monday's flight marked the final launch from Pad 1 in its existing form. The differences with the second launch pad include its flame trench, a common fixture at many launch pads around the world. Pad 1 was not built with a flame trench, but instead features an elevated launch mount where the rocket sits prior to liftoff.

SpaceX is expected to overhaul Pad 1 in the coming months to reactivate it as a second launch pad option for Starship V3. All of this work is occurring in Texas as SpaceX prepares to bring online more Starship launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX says it will need a lot of pads to ramp up Starship to monthly, weekly, and eventually daily flights.

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:35 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of September): 4,533

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That's according to a new study that suggests a link between social media use and poorer cognition in teens. The findings are published in JAMA.

"This is a really exciting study," says psychologist Mitch Prinstein at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wasn't involved in the new research.

"It confirms a lot of what we have been hearing about from schools all across the country, which is that kids are just having a really hard time focusing on being able to learn as well as they used to, because of the ways in which social media has changed their ability to process information, perhaps."

While most previous research has focused on the impact of social media use on kids' mental health, "it's critical to understand how social media use during school hours specifically affects learning, especially as so many schools are considering phone bans right now," says study author and pediatrician Jason Nagata of the University of California, San Francisco.

A look at reading and memory 

To understand that, Nagata and his colleagues used data from one of the largest ongoing studies on adolescents, called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Scientists have been following thousands of preteens as they go through adolescence to understand the development of their brains.

The ongoing study has been surveying kids about their social media use every year and giving them a range of tests for learning and memory every other year. Nagata and his colleagues used data on over 6,000 children, ages 9 to 10, as scientists followed them through early adolescence.

They classified the kids into three groups based on their evolving patterns of social media use. The biggest group, consisting of about 58% of the kids, used little or no social media over the next few years. The second-largest group, about 37% of kids, started out with low-level use of social media, but by the time they turned 13, they were spending about an hour each day on social media.

The remaining 6% of kids — called the "high increasing social media group" — were spending about three or more hours a day by age 13.

"The dosage effect"

All the groups were given a range of tests to measure their cognitive functioning at the start of the study and in early adolescence. For example, the oral reading recognition test examined their reading and vocabulary skills. Another test, called the picture vocabulary test, had them match the right pictures to words they heard.

"What was notable actually to me and perhaps surprising was that even the low [increasing] social media users, so those who had about one hour a day by age 13, did perform on average 1 to 2 points lower on the reading and memory tasks compared to the non-social media users," says Nagata.

And the high increasing group performed up to 4 to 5 points lower than the non-social media users.

"So those who had the highest social media use have lower scores," notes Nagata, "but even the low users had smaller differences in their cognitive scores."

"That really speaks to the dosage effect of these [apps]," says psychologist Sheri Madigan at the University of Calgary, who wrote an accompanying editorial for the study. "It's problematic at really high uses, but it's also problematic at even in small doses."

While a difference of a few points in test scores may seem insignificant, "it's important to understand that kids are a moving target," explains Prinstein, who is also chief of psychology strategy and integration at the American Psychological Association.

"Even a slight change in what they look like after a short period of time means that they're kind of now pointed on a trajectory that is different from others. That means that two, three, five years from now, we might be talking about some very significant gaps between kids who might have been heavy users or not as heavy users."

And other recent research shows that hours on social media increase later in adolescence, notes Nagata. "We would expect that when they hit age 15, 16, 17, their use will be much higher," which might lead to even larger gaps in cognition and learning in later years, he adds.

In earlier studies, Nagata's team has used the same data from the ABCD Study and found other disturbing trends among underage social media users.

They found that a majority of kids — nearly two-thirds — start using social media before they turn 13, with the average user having three social media accounts.

They also found high levels of addiction-like symptoms with smartphones among 10-to-14-year-olds.

"Half the kids who had smartphones said that they lose track of how much time they're using their phone," says Nagata. "A quarter who are using social media say they use social media to forget about their problems. And 11% say that social media use has negatively affected their schoolwork."

An important time for brain development

Adolescence is a critical period for brain development, notes Prinstein, when the brain is fine-tuning its architecture based on experiences.

"After the first year of life, the adolescent period is the time where we see the most growth and the biggest reorganization of the brain in our lifetimes," he says.

In a recent study, Prinstein and his colleagues found that teens who are heavy social media users have brains that are more attuned to an existence on social media, with its "rapid, constant feedback," says Prinstein. "What we're finding is that kids become hypersensitive to the kinds of likes, comments, feedback and rewards they might get from peers."

Those findings help explain the results of the new studies, he adds. "It makes perfect sense that if their brain is growing to be optimized for social media activities, it might not be optimized for other things they need to do, like we saw in the [new] study."

The new study also "gives us good-enough evidence that we really need to create some policies that are really specific around creating age limits, for example, on social media apps," says Madigan.

Denmark announced last week that it plans to enforce a social media ban for users under age 15, she notes. Australia is requiring social media companies to "take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account" starting December 2025.

Madigan hopes other countries will take note. "I think that we'll see a trickle effect on that. That's going to be really beneficial for kids."

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Japan’s health authorities have declared an influenza epidemic, with thousands of people infected with the respiratory virus. The number of infections for this time of year is unusual, say researchers, and could seed outbreaks in countries that are heading into winter in Asia and Europe — although it is unlikely to become a global pandemic.

As of 10 October, 6,013 cases of influenza virus have been reported in Japan. More than 100 schools have closed, and nearly half of the 287 people who were hospitalized for flu in September were children aged 14 or younger. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare declared a nationwide epidemic on 3 October. Outbreaks are classified as epidemics when the number of infections is higher than expected in a given area over a particular period of time.

Outbreaks of influenza virus tend to occur seasonally each year, predominantly in winter across countries with temperate climates. In Japan, that usually occurs around the end of November. This year, the increase in people being treated for flu started five weeks earlier than usual, says Vinod Balasubramaniam, a molecular virologist at Monash University Malaysia in Subang Jaya.

Japan has had early starts to flu season in the past few years, but not this early, says Ian Barr, a researcher and deputy director for the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, who is based in Melbourne, Australia. “You might see cases in October, but not epidemic-type numbers,” says Barr.

Increasing international travel since the COVID-19 pandemic is one factor that could be behind the early start to flu season, says Balasubramaniam. Other factors include climate change and a lack of exposure to the circulating virus, particularly in elderly people and young children.

Information about which strains are circulating in Japan has not yet emerged, but Barr says the outbreaks there could be caused by a strain of influenza A, called H3N2, that surged in Australia and New Zealand over the past two months, coinciding with the end of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. People from Australia are travelling to Japan in huge numbers, he says, meaning there are more chances for virus transmission between hemispheres.

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I am standing in the bathroom with a strip of litmus paper in my hand. I am going to pee on it and hope that it doesn’t turn red, which would indicate acid. This isn’t for a bet – it is a (ahem) litmus test of whether my diet is slowly killing me. Acidic urine is a crude sign that something called my dietary acid load is too high. If it is, I am opening myself up to a range of ills. Luckily, there is a simple cure: a change of diet. So, if I do see red, I am going to eat some spinach and try again. 

This might sound like medical woo-woo, and there are worrying echoes of a discredited fad called the alkaline diet. But nutrition scientists increasingly think that by ignoring dietary acid load we are missing a trick when it comes to healthy eating. “The higher the dietary acid load, the higher the risk of developing chronic diseases,” says Hana Kahleova at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a not-for-profit research centre in Washington DC. These include kidney disease, liver disease, cancer, obesity, hypertension and even anxiety and depression. 

Shockingly, almost all of us are getting this wrong – especially if we eat a regular Western diet. But the good news is that, unlike the damage caused by consuming too much salt or more calories than we need, this can be quite easily reversed, provided you know which foods and drinks make your body too acidic. What’s more, the new science of dietary acid load is throwing fresh light on why certain diets promote chronic diseases. 

The idea that the food we eat affects the acid-alkaline balance of our bodies was established in the 1960s when doctors discovered that, although human urine is usually acidic, the pee of vegetarians tends to be slightly alkaline. This was later shown to be correlated with the amount of “acid ash” in people’s diets. A now-obsolete measure, the acid-ash test entails incinerating foodstuffs and analysing the resulting ash, a process that supposedly mimics metabolism and indicates whether the final breakdown products of digested foods are acidic or alkaline.

When it comes to dietary acid, the worst part of this unhealthy feast is the burger

In 1968, two doctors at Harvard University proposed that too much dietary ash was the cause of two major diseases of old age, osteoporosis, or bone loss, and sarcopenia, or muscle wasting. Their hypothesis was that to buffer the effect of excess acid, bones and muscles are broken down to release alkaline compounds such as carbonates, phosphates and ammonia. The result, they proposed, is a reduction in bone density and muscle mass. The acid-ash hypothesis has long fallen out of favour, largely because there is no evidence that an acidic diet is a risk factor for osteoporosis. However, the basic idea lives on in the form of dietary acid load – a phoenix from the flames.  

Measuring acidity is Chemistry 101. You probably remember using litmus paper in a school science lab to assess the pH of various substances on a scale from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral, anything below being acidic, and anything above being alkaline. As with my pee test, the paper will turn red to indicate acid and blue for alkali. A more sophisticated version of this test reveals that the pH of human blood and the intracellular fluids derived from it is kept on a tight leash – ideally within the range of 7.35 to 7.45, so slightly alkaline.  

“Our body needs to keep the pH very constant,” says Kahleova. Stray outside this and things go quickly downhill, especially if it drops below the lower limit. This is a state called acute metabolic acidosis, which manifests as a rapid heartbeat, confusion, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, headaches and, in extreme cases, death. Nasty, but rare. Normally, our bodies have little difficulty staying on their pH leash. Most cases of acute acidosis are caused by underlying conditions such as kidney and liver disease, cancer and diabetes, although it is not unknown in people eating an extremely high-protein diet, exercising to exhaustion, suffering from acute diarrhoea or overdosing on laxatives.  

What makes me acidic?

The two main sources of acid in the bloodstream are respiration, which generates carbon dioxide (which becomes carbonic acid when dissolved in water) and the digestion and metabolism of food and drink, which produces many other acidic compounds.

The lungs deal with the former and the kidneys the latter. Carbon dioxide doesn’t cause acidosis, because the lungs easily excrete it. But, depending on your diet, acids derived from things you consume can: the overall balance as a result of food and drink is referred to as the dietary acid load, or DAL. To maintain its preferred mildly alkaline state, our body must excrete the same amount of acid as it gains. When acid predominates, the kidneys filter out the excess and dump it into the urine. If more must be done to get back on track, they also retrieve alkaline bicarbonate ions from the filtrate and return these to the bloodstream. For most people, most of the time, this system is perfectly capable of keeping their body in the Goldilocks zone. Unfortunately, staying out of acute metabolic acidosis isn’t enough, though. Even hovering on or around the lower pH limit of 7.35 can cause problems, pushing us into a state called low-grade metabolic acidosis, which, despite not being as dangerous as acute acidosis, is still a health risk. 

Surprisingly, acidic citrus fruits, such as oranges, are alkaline when your body digests them

What determines whether a food is acidic isn’t its pH when it is on your plate, but the pH of its metabolites. The final breakdown products of what we eat and drink range enormously in pH, from quite acidic through to quite alkaline. They can be surprising. Many relatively acidic foods, such as citrus fruits, are actually alkaline in the context of DAL because the abundant citric acid they contain is metabolised to bicarbonate, which is alkaline. They, and other fruits and vegetables, are also rich in proteins that produce alkaline metabolites. This is in sharp contrast to animal proteins. They are rich in the sulphur-containing amino acids cysteine, homocysteine and methionine, plus three other amino acids, namely lysine, arginine and histidine, all of which lead to acidic metabolites. Many grains and nuts contain these acid-generating amino acids too. Indeed, proteins are the main determinant of DAL. Other notable sources of acid in our diets are the chloride ions in table salt (sodium chloride) and the food additive phosphoric acid, which is put into fizzy drinks and a wide variety of processed fare such as meats, dairy products and cereal bars.  

More perils of a Western diet

At this point, alarm bells may be ringing. Western-style diets are notoriously rich in animal products, salt, refined grains and ultra-processed foods, and low in fruit and vegetables – the perfect recipe for low-grade metabolic acidosis. Indeed, researchers believe that among people consuming the typical Western diet, it is very common, if not ubiquitous. “We have a chronic exposure to a high dietary acid load, so that’s something that we all have,” says Ilias Attaye at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. 

But addressing this isn’t as straightforward as simply switching away from a Western diet – there are many factors to take into account. One is that some fresh fruits and vegetables contain compounds that are metabolised to oxalic acid, which pushes them towards the acidic column. This makes things like beets, blackberries, cherries, grapes and raspberries much less alkaline than you might hope, according to Gabriela Leal-Escobar at the Ignacio Chávez National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico City. Many plant-based processed foods, meanwhile, include acid-forming additives such as phosphoric acid. “You have to be very careful about additives, make sure vegetables don’t have anything added to them, because that can really promote the acid load,” says Attaye. 

Counterintuitively, inside your body, some of these fruits produce acidic metabolites

Another problem is that assessing DAL is notoriously difficult. The pH of your urine is too crude a measure to be of clinical use. There is no gold standard measure for DAL, but there is a method to calculate it more accurately. Potential renal acid load, or PRAL, was developed in the early 1990s to replace the acid-ash test. It is calculated with an equation that estimates the amount of acid or alkali that will be produced when 100 grams of a given foodstuff or drink are metabolised, measured in a unit called milliequivalents per litre (mEq/L). The outcome is a number ranging from about minus 15 to around plus 35. In contrast with the pH scale, however, the more negative the PRAL score, the more alkaline the food; the more positive, the more acidic. In this case, 0 is neutral. 

PRAL is calculated from the content of just five nutrients: total protein, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium. Protein and phosphorus add to the score, while calcium, magnesium and potassium subtract from it. That may seem plain wrong, as proteins are the major determinant of DAL and can be acid or alkali-producing. But this is compensated for by the fact that animal products contain more phosphorus than plant products do, which, in turn, are richer in calcium, magnesium and potassium, says Kahleova. “So, if you’re consuming more animal protein, automatically your dietary acid load will be higher.”

In general, the mEq/L of an animal-derived food is acidic and plant products are alkaline. “Meat’s dietary acid load is roughly between 8 and 10. Cheese is even more acidic, at around 30 – Parmesan being the highest at 34,” says Kahleova. “Rye bread is about 4 – still slightly acidic. Legumes tend to be around 0 or slightly negative, and most vegetables and fruits are in the negative numbers, like minus 4 or 5. The champion is the leafy greens, at minus 14. So leafy greens are the most effective way to make your diet more alkaline.” Alcoholic drinks, meanwhile, are effectively neutral. Wine has a PRAL score of +0.03 per 100 ml, spirits +0.11 and beer -0.2.  

PRAL can be adjusted to take account of people’s height and weight, but it isn’t a perfect measure. A major weakness is that it doesn’t include salt, so it probably underestimates the true DAL. However, the assumption is that the chloride ions that salt produces are mostly consumed in processed foods, many of which have PRAL scores that take account of salt. Also, since people on Western diets tend to eat roughly the same amount of salt, it has a similar impact on everyone and so can be ignored. Nevertheless, for everyday purposes, PRAL can give a pretty good sense of whether your diet has an acidic or alkaline outcome, and to what extent – and hence offer guidance about healthier eating.

Leafy green vegetables are the best option when it comes to reducing the pH in your body

If you are interested in the acidity question, you don’t have to calculate PRAL from scratch. There are tables available containing the scores of hundreds of common foodstuffs, so all you need to do is make a note of what you ate and how much, then tally your PRAL score per day, which is expressed in units of mEq/d. If the number that pops out is below 60, you are almost certainly fine. An overall negative score – unlikely, given the Western diet is overwhelmingly acidic – is also nothing to worry about. Although there is an alkaline version of acidosis, called alkalosis, there are no known cases of it being caused by an excessively alkaline diet, according to Kahleova. However, if your score is over 60 mEq/d, that is a problem. 

I did this for a few days – not easy, as the tables only feature raw ingredients – and found that my PRAL figure was consistently around 70 mEq/d. That is on the low side of what is typical for somebody eating a Western-style diet. But then, I am vegetarian – albeit one with a passion for cheese. My score still isn’t good, though. Attaye notes that healthy kidneys can eliminate between about 40 and 60mEq of acid per day without any trouble. Admittedly, they can deal with a lot more, but that takes a toll. “They will always find a way to keep the pH where it’s supposed to be. But it places a huge demand on them,” says Kahleova. Overloaded kidneys work hard to raise the pH above the lower threshold – but only just. The result is low-grade metabolic acidosis, and its attendant health problems. 

The first organ system to feel the burn is the kidneys themselves. Persistent overwork gradually grinds them down, leading to mild chronic kidney disease. This then starts a vicious cycle, says Attaye. Diseased kidneys are less efficient at eliminating excess acid, so have to work ever harder to maintain a healthy pH. Eventually, they can’t keep up and low-grade metabolic acidosis can develop into full-blown acidosis. People with kidney disease are already often advised to eat a low-PRAL diet. But it is probably better for your kidneys to take action before the problems start. “The lighter we can make their work, the better for us,” says Kahleova. 

How acid corrodes you

The link between a high DAL and kidney disease is pretty much nailed down. Now, there is a growing suspicion among nutrition scientists that the acid inside our bodies eats deeper. Low-grade metabolic acidosis has been tentatively linked to multiple chronic conditions, including diabetes, obesity, liver disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, anxiety and depression. As yet, these are just associations from small-scale studies. Bigger ones are needed before DAL can be built into dietary guidelines, says Attaye. But they are coming. For example, he has just received funding for a clinical trial to look at how low and high-acid diets affect the metabolic health of people with diabetes.

The link with obesity is quite robust too. Kahleova recently completed a trial in which overweight adults followed either a Mediterranean-style diet or a low-fat vegan diet for 16 weeks, then swapped over. Participants could eat as much as they wanted as long as they didn’t eat the wrong things. The Mediterranean diet had a negligible impact on weight loss, but when on the vegan diet, participants lost an average of 6 kilograms of body fat. That was mainly because they consumed fewer calories – but this only accounted for about three-quarters of the weight loss. Kahleova believes DAL accounts for the rest. She measured the acidity of the diets using PRAL, with an adjustment for weight and height, and found that, although both were alkaline, the vegan one was much more so: its PRAL score was around -19.3 mEq/d, compared with -1.6 mEq/d for the Mediterranean diet. “The alkaline environment basically enables metabolic processes to run more efficiently,” she says. “The vegan diet increases metabolism, so after each meal the body just burns more calories.” 

Other conditions that have been linked to high DAL need further testing. Nevertheless, Attaye sees a plausible mechanism by which an excessively acidic diet might lead to chronic diseases. “The fundamental studies are lacking, so we don’t really understand what’s going on,” he says. “But my thought is that it contributes to low-grade inflammation.” Overloading the kidneys causes the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which leads to inflammation. And chronic inflammation is a known risk factor for multiple conditions.  

Beer and wine aren’t acidic when digested, so you can enjoy a tipple if you like. Cheers!

Given the known and suspected consequences of a high-acid diet, perhaps it is no surprise that it also increases the risk of premature death. Earlier this year, a team led by Mohammad Reza Pashaei at Urmia University of Medical Sciences in Iran published a review of the literature on DAL. The researchers found that each increase of 10 mEq/d raises the risk of dying from any cause by 3 per cent. 

All of this is pointing to a way of eating healthily that both Attaye and Kahleova believe will become as influential and well-known as the Mediterranean diet: the low-acid diet. To be clear, it isn’t the same as the fad alkaline diet, which rests on the unscientific assumption that too much acid causes cancer and that an alkaline diet can prevent and cure it. This has been debunked repeatedly. In 2018, the British Dietetic Association went so far as to declare it as “nonsense”. 

A scientifically sound low-acid diet wouldn’t be radically different from existing healthy eating guidelines. A focus on DAL strongly backs the message that cutting down on animal products, salt, refined grains and ultra-processed foods is good for you – as is eating more fruit and vegetables. “It reinforces the more general concept of eating less animal protein, less processed foods and more leafy greens,” says Attaye. “But there are some nuances. It’s not completely the same because also some vegetables and grains have a high acid load.” 

We have long understood that what we eat can contribute to chronic diseases. Our emerging understanding of DAL is bringing new insights into how these two things are linked. “The field of nutrition is working towards a more holistic view of food. DAL, I think, is one of the ways to look at it. It’s not the only way, but it’s one of the ways,” says Attaye.  

Better yet, there is an immediate win we can all take from this. The damage we do to ourselves by consuming too much acid-forming food and drink can quite easily be reversed by choosing alkali-forming alternatives. I can attest to this. My urine test did come up red, but after eating a bag of spinach, I tried again and this time the litmus paper was blue.  

“This is something we can influence through dietary choices,” says Kahleova. “It’s a simple, simple intervention that everybody can do.” 

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Owners of some Jeep Wrangler 4xe hybrids have been left stranded after installing an over-the-air software update this weekend. The automaker pushed out a telematics update for the Uconnect infotainment system that evidently wasn't ready, resulting in cars losing power while driving and then becoming stranded.

Stranded Jeep owners have been detailing their experiences in forum and Reddit posts, as well as on YouTube. The buggy update doesn't appear to brick the car immediately. Instead, the failure appears to occur while driving—a far more serious problem. For some, this happened close to home and at low speed, but others claim to have experienced a powertrain failure at highway speeds.

Jeep pulled the update after reports of problems, but the software had already downloaded to many owners' cars by then. A member of Stellantis' social engagement team told 4xe owners at a Jeep forum to ignore the update pop-up if they haven't installed it yet.

Owners were also advised to avoid using either hybrid or electric modes if they had updated their 4xe and not already suffered a powertrain failure. Yesterday, Jeep pushed out a fix.

As Crowdstrike showed last year, Friday afternoons are a bad time to push out a software update. Now Stellantis has learned that lesson, too. Ars has reached out to Stellantis, and we'll update this post if we get a reply.

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Posted Tuesday 14 October 2025 at 3:10 am AEST (my time).

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The research, led by Dr. Liv Tybjærg Nordestgaard while at the University of Bristol and the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at Copenhagen University Hospital—Herlev and Gentofte, found that people with certain genetic variants that naturally lower cholesterol have a lower risk of developing dementia.

The study, which is based on data from over a million people in Denmark, England, and Finland, has been published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia.

Some people are born with genetic variants that naturally affect the same proteins targeted by cholesterol-lowering drugs, such as statins and ezetimibe. To test the effect of cholesterol-lowering medication on the risk of dementia, the researchers used a method called Mendelian Randomization—this genetic analysis technique allowed them to mimic the effects of these drugs to investigate how they influence the risk of dementia, while minimizing the influence of confounding factors like weight, diet, and other lifestyle habits.

By comparing these individuals to individuals without these genetic variants, the researchers were able to measure differences in the risk of dementia. They found reducing the amount of cholesterol in the blood by a small amount (one millimole per liter) to be associated with up to 80% reduction in risk of developing dementia for certain drug targets.

"What our study indicates is that if you have these variants that lower your cholesterol, it looks like you have a significantly lower risk of developing dementia," said Dr. Nordestgaard, who now works in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at Copenhagen University Hospital—Bispebjerg and Frederiksberg hospital.

The results suggest that having low cholesterol, whether due to genes or medical treatment, can help reduce the risk of dementia. However, the study does not say anything definitive about the effect of the medicine itself.

One of the challenges is that dementia typically does not appear until late in life, and therefore research in the area typically requires a very long period of follow-up.

It is still not known exactly why high cholesterol can increase the risk of dementia, but one possible explanation proposed by Dr. Nordestgaard is that high cholesterol can lead to atherosclerosis.

"Atherosclerosis is a result of the accumulation of cholesterol in your blood vessels," Dr. Nordestgaard said. "It can be in both the body and the brain and increases the risk of forming small blood clots—one of the causes of dementia.

"It would be a really good next step to carry out randomized clinical trials over 10 or 30 years, for example, where you give the participants cholesterol-lowering medication and then look at the risk of developing dementia," Dr. Nordestgaard added.

The study used data from the UK Biobank, the Copenhagen General Population Study, the Copenhagen City Heart Study, the FinnGen study, and the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium.

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The United Nations' health agency warned that one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections worldwide in 2023 showed resistance to antibiotic treatments.

"These findings are deeply concerning," Yvan J-F. Hutin, head of the WHO's antimicrobial resistance department, told reporters. "As antibiotic resistance continues to rise, we're running out of treatment options and we're putting lives at risk."

Bacteria have long developed resistance against medicines designed to fight them, rendering many drugs useless. And that's been accelerated by the massive use of antibiotics to treat humans, animals and food.

Antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) superbugs directly cause over a million deaths and contribute to nearly five million every year, according to the WHO.

In a report on AMR surveillance, the WHO examined resistance prevalence estimates for 22 antibiotics used to treat infections of the urinary and gastrointestinal tracts, the bloodstream and those used to treat gonorrhoea.

In the five years leading to up 2023, antibiotic resistance increased in over 40 percent of the monitored antibiotics, with an average annual rise of between five and 15 percent, the report found.

For urinary tract infections, resistance to commonly-used antibiotics was typically higher than 30 percent globally, it showed.

The report looked at eight common bacteria pathogens, including E. coli and K. pneumoniae, which can lead to severe bloodstream infections that frequently result in sepsis, organ failure and death.

The WHO warned that more than 40 percent of E. coli infections and 55 percent of K. pneumoniae infections globally are now resistant to third-generation cephalosporins -- the first-choice treatment for these infections.

"Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned in a statement.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that infection rates from drug-resistant "nightmare bacteria" jumped almost 70% between 2019 and 2023.   

"Flying blind"

The WHO hailed improvements in surveillance but warned that 48 percent of countries still weren't reporting any AMR data.

"We are definitely flying blind in a number of countries and regions that have insufficient surveillance systems for antimicrobial resistance," Hutin acknowledged.

Judging from the available data, most resistance was found in places with weaker health systems and less surveillance, the WHO said.

The highest resistance was found in the Southeast Asian and Eastern Mediterranean regions, where one-in-three reported infections were resistant. In the African region, one-in-five infections were resistant.

Silvia Bertagnolio, who heads the WHO unit for antimicrobial resistance surveillance, told reporters it wasn't surprising that resistance would be higher in places with weaker health systems, since they may lack the capacity to diagnose or treat pathogens effectively.

The differences could also be linked to the fact that countries with less surveillance may test and provide data on fewer patients and only those with the most serious infections, she said.

The WHO has warned that there are not enough new tests and treatments in the pipeline to tackle the growing spread of drug-resistant bacteria.

This is creating a significant "future threat," Hutin cautioned, adding that "the increasing antibiotic use, the increasing resistance and the reduction of the pipeline is a very dangerous combination."

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A recent study of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, has detected several organic compounds that had never been recorded there before. The findings, published this month in Nature Astronomy, provide new clues about the interior chemical composition of this icy world, as well as new hope that it could harbor life.

The researchers analyzed data from the Cassini probe, which launched in 1997 and studied Saturn and its moons for years until its destruction in 2017. For Enceladus, Cassini gathered data from ice fragments forcefully ejected from the moon’s subsurface ocean up into space.

Enceladus is one of 274 bodies so far discovered in Saturn’s gravitational pull. It measures about 500 kilometers in diameter, making it the planet’s sixth-largest satellite. While this moon does not stand out for its size, it is notable for its cryovolcanoes—geysers at Enceladus’s south pole that spew out water vapor and ice fragments. Plumes of ejected material can extend to nearly 10,000 kilometers in length, which is more than the distance from Mexico to Patagonia, and some of this material rises into space. The outermost of Saturn’s main rings—its E ring—is primarily made up of ice ejected into space by Enceladus.

This material is believed to come from a saline water chamber beneath the moon’s icy crust that is connected to its rocky core. It’s possible that chemical reactions are taking place down there, under high pressure and heat.

Until now, most chemical analyses of ice from Enceladus were of particles deposited in Saturn’s E ring. But during a high-speed flyby of the moon in 2008, Cassini was fortunate enough to directly sample freshly ejected fragments from a cryovolcano. The new research paper reanalyzed this data, confirming the presence of previously detected organic molecules, as well as revealing compounds that had previously been undetected.

“Such compounds are believed to be intermediates in the synthesis of more complex molecules, which could be potentially biologically relevant. It is important to note, however, that these molecules can be formed abiotically as well,” Nozair Khawaja, a planetary scientist at Freie Universität Berlin and lead author of the study, told Reuters. The discovery significantly expands the range of confirmed organic molecules on Enceladus.

The key is that the compounds appeared in freshly ejected particles, suggesting that they were formed within the moon’s hidden ocean or in contact with its internal interfaces, not during their journey through the E ring or via exposure to the conditions of space. This reinforces the hypothesis that hydrothermal processes beneath Enceladus’s surface could be generating rich organic chemistry. Combining this new research with previous studies, scientists have now found five of the six elements essential for life—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur—in the satellite’s ejected material.

This itself is not a discovery of life, nor of biosignatures—the signs of life. However, the research confirms that Enceladus has the three basic conditions for life to form: liquid water, an energy source, and essential elements and organics. “Enceladus is, and should be ranked, as the prime target to explore habitability and search whether there is life or not,” Khawaja said.

This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.

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Posted Monday 13 October 2025 at 5:42 pm AEST (my time).

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A magnon is a quantum particle that represents a collective disturbance in the alignment of electron spins within a magnetic material. When one electron’s spin flips, it triggers a ripple of spin changes that travels through the lattice like a wave. This wave-like excitation carries both energy and angular momentum, making magnons crucial for understanding magnetism and for potential applications in spintronics, where information is transmitted using spin rather than charge.

This excitation enables the control of magnetic frequencies and amplitudes in a way that does not rely on heat. “The result was a huge surprise for us. No theory has ever predicted it,” said Bossini. By driving high-frequency magnon pairs, the team was able to influence other magnons in the material, effectively changing their magnetic properties.

The study addresses a growing challenge in information technology (IT). Sustaining the growth of the data volume generated by artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things requires new schemes for data storage and processing that operate at terahertz frequencies without being limited by thermal throttling. The optical drive of coherent magnetic collective excitations, namely magnons, represents one promising route. The ability to arbitrarily and nonthermally increase magnon frequencies with laser pulses could enable this progress, yet such an effect had not been reported until now.

To achieve it, the Konstanz team explored the optical resonant excitation of high-momentum magnons. These were experimentally observed to couple to low-momentum magnons, modifying their frequencies and amplitudes. The evidence, not caused by laser heating, is explained with a resonant light-scattering mechanism that couples high- and low-momentum eigenmodes (certain distinct periodic vibration patterns) across momentum space. According to the researchers, this mechanism discloses routes to inducing instabilities and phase transitions via mode softening, and potentially even light-driven Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons and superconductivity mediated by high-momentum spin fluctuations.

Bossini emphasized that the observed effects are not caused by heating. “The effects are not caused by laser excitation. The cause is light, not temperature,” he explained. This non-thermal mechanism avoids the buildup of heat, a common obstacle in high-speed data processing. The process also alters the fundamental characteristics of the material. “Every solid has its own set of frequencies: electronic transitions, lattice vibrations, magnetic excitations. Every material resonates in its own way,” said Bossini. “It changes the nature of the material, the ‘magnetic DNA of the material,’ so to speak, its ‘fingerprint’. It has practically become a different material with new properties for the time being.”

The experiments were conducted using haematite, a naturally abundant iron ore historically used in compasses. “Haematite is widespread. Centuries ago, it was already used for compasses in seafaring,” Bossini noted. Unlike many advanced technologies, the method does not require rare earth elements or exotic materials.

The findings also suggest potential applications in quantum research. The method could enable the creation of light-induced Bose-Einstein condensates of high-energy magnons at room temperature. Such a development would allow the study of quantum effects without the need for extreme cooling, which is typically required at temperatures near -270 degrees Celsius. While further research is needed, the work from Konstanz demonstrates a new way to manipulate materials with light, offering a possible path toward faster, more efficient information technologies and accessible quantum experiments.

Source: University of Konstanz, AAAS

This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

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Posted Sunday 12 October 2025 at 5:36 pm AEST (my time).

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Every few weeks, it seems, yet another lab proclaims yet another breakthrough in the race to perfect solid-state batteries: next-generation power packs that promise to give us electric vehicles (EVs) so problem-free that we’ll have no reason left to buy gas-guzzlers.

These new solid-state cells are designed to be lighter and more compact than the lithium-ion batteries used in today’s EVs. They should also be much safer, with nothing inside that can burn like those rare but hard-to-extinguish lithium-ion fires. They should hold a lot more energy, turning range anxiety into a distant memory with consumer EVs able to go four, five, six hundred miles on a single charge.

And forget about those “fast” recharges lasting half an hour or more: Solid-state batteries promise EV fill-ups in minutes—almost as fast as any standard car gets with gasoline.

This may all sound too good to be true—and it is, if you’re looking to buy a solid-state-powered EV this year or next. Look a bit further, though, and the promises start to sound more plausible. “If you look at what people are putting out as a road map from industry, they say they are going to try for actual prototype solid-state battery demonstrations in their vehicles by 2027 and try to do large-scale commercialization by 2030,” says University of Washington materials scientist Jun Liu, who directs a university-government-industry battery development collaboration known as the Innovation Center for Battery500 Consortium.

Indeed, the challenge is no longer to prove that solid-state batteries are feasible. That has long since been done in any number of labs around the world. The big challenge now is figuring out how to manufacture these devices at scale, and at an acceptable cost.

Superionic materials to the rescue

Not so long ago, says Eric McCalla, who studies battery materials at McGill University in Montreal and is a coauthor of a paper on battery technology in the 2025 Annual Review of Materials Research, this heady rate of advancement toward powering electric vehicles was almost unimaginable.

Until about 2010, explains McCalla, “the solid-state battery had always seemed like something that would be really awesome—if we could get it to work.” Like current EV batteries, it would still be built with lithium, an unbeatable element when it comes to the amount of charge it can store per gram. But standard lithium-ion batteries use a liquid, a highly flammable one at that, to allow easy passage of charged particles (ions) between the device’s positive and negative electrodes. The new battery design would replace the liquid with a solid electrolyte that would be nearly impervious to fire—while allowing for a host of other physical and chemical changes that could make the battery faster charging, lighter in weight, and all the rest.

“But the material requirements for these solid electrolytes were beyond the state of the art,” says McCalla. After all, standard lithium-ion batteries have a good reason for using a liquid electrolyte: It gives the ionized lithium atoms inside a fluid medium to move through as they shuttle between the battery’s two electrodes. This back-and-forth cycle is how any battery stores and releases energy—the chemical equivalent of pumping water from a low-lying reservoir to a high mountain lake, then letting it run back down through a turbine whenever you need some power. This hypothetical new battery would somehow have to let those lithium ions flow just as freely—but through a solid.

Storing electrical energy in a rechargeable battery is like pumping water from a low-lying reservoir 

up to a high mountain lake. Likewise, using that energy to power an external device is like letting the 

water flow back downhill through a generator. The volume of the mountain lake corresponds to the 

battery’s capacity, or how much charge it can hold, while the lake’s height corresponds to the battery’s 

voltage—how much energy it gives to each unit of charge it sends through the device.

Credit: Knowable Magazine

This seemed hopeless for larger uses such as EVs, says McCalla. Certain polymers and other solids were known to let ions pass, but at rates that were orders of magnitude slower than liquid electrolytes. In the past two decades, however, researchers have discovered several families of lithium-rich compounds that are “superionic”—meaning that some atoms behave like a crystalline solid while others behave more like a liquid—and that can conduct lithium ions as fast as standard liquid electrolytes, if not faster.

“So the bottleneck suddenly is not the bottleneck anymore,” says McCalla.

True, manufacturing these batteries can be a challenge. For example, some of the superionic solids are so brittle that they require special equipment for handling, while others must be processed in ultra-low humidity chambers lest they react with water vapor and generate toxic hydrogen sulfide gas.

Still, the suddenly wide-open potential of solid-state batteries has led to a surge of research and development money from funding agencies around the globe—not to mention the launch of multiple startup companies working in partnership with carmakers such as Toyota, Volkswagen, and many more. Although not all the numbers are public, investments in solid-state battery development are already in the billions of dollars worldwide.

“Every automotive company has said solid-state batteries are the future,” says University of Maryland materials scientist Eric Wachsman. “It’s just a question of, When is that future?”

The rise of lithium-ion batteries

Perhaps the biggest reason to ask that “when” question, aside from the still-daunting manufacturing challenges, is a stark economic reality: Solid-state batteries will have to compete in the marketplace with a standard lithium-ion industry that has an enormous head start.

“Lithium-ion batteries have been developed and optimized over the last 30 years, and they work really great,” says physicist Alex Louli, an engineer and spokesman at one of the leading solid-state battery startups, San Jose, California-based QuantumScape.

Charging a standard lithium-ion battery (top) works by applying a voltage between cathode and anode. 

This pulls lithium atoms from the cathode and strips off an electron from each. The now positively charged 

lithium ions then flow across the membrane to the negatively charged anode. There, the ions reunite with 

the electrons, which flowed through an external circuit as an electric current. These now neutral atoms nest 

in the graphite lattice until needed again. The battery’s discharge cycle (bottom) is just the reverse: Electrons 

deliver energy to your cell phone or electric car as they flow via a circuit from anode to cathode, while lithium 

ions race through the membrane to meet them there.

Credit: Knowable Magazine

They’ve also gotten really cheap, comparatively speaking. When Japan’s Sony Corporation introduced the first commercial lithium-ion battery in 1991, drawing on a worldwide research effort dating back to the 1950s, it powered one of the company’s camcorders and cost the equivalent of $7,500 for every kilowatt-hour (KwH) of energy it stored. By April 2025 lithium-ion battery prices had plummeted to $115 per KwH, and were projected to fall toward $80 per KwH or less by 2030—low enough to make a new EV substantially cheaper than the equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle.

“Most of these advancements haven’t really been down to any fundamental chemistry improvements,” says Mauro Pasta, an applied electrochemist at the University of Oxford. “What’s changed the game has been the economies of scale in manufacturing.”

Liu points to a prime example: the roll-to-roll process used for the cylindrical batteries found in most of today’s EVs. “You make a slurry,” says Liu, “then you cast the slurry into thin films, roll the films together with very high speed and precision, and you can make hundreds and thousands of cells very, very quickly with very high quality.”

Lithium-ion cells have also seen big advances in safety. The existence of that flammable electrolyte means that EV crashes can and do lead to hard-to-extinguish lithium-ion fires. But thanks to the circuit breakers and other safeguards built into modern battery packs, only about 25 EVs catch fire out of every 100,000 sold, versus some 1,500 fires per 100,000 conventional cars—which, of course, carry around large tanks of explosively flammable gasoline.

In fact, says McCalla, the standard lithium-ion industry is so far ahead that solid-state might never catch up. “EVs are going to scale today,” he says, “and they’re going with the technology that’s affordable today.” Indeed, battery manufacturers are ramping up their lithium-ion capacity as fast as they can. “So I wonder if the train has already left the station.”

But maybe not. Solid-state technology does have a geopolitical appeal, notes Ying Shirley Meng, a materials scientist at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. “With lithium-ion batteries the game is over—China already dominates 70 percent of the manufacturing,” she says. So for any country looking to lead the next battery revolution, “solid-state presents a very exciting opportunity.”

Performance potential

Another plus is improved performance. At the very time that EV buyers are looking for ever greater range and charging speed, says Louli, the standard lithium-ion recipe is hitting a performance plateau. To do better, he says, “you have to go back and start doing some material innovations”—like those in solid-state batteries.

Take the standard battery’s liquid electrolyte, for example. It’s not only flammable, but also a limitation on charging speed. When you plug in an electric car, the charging cable acts as an external circuit that’s applying a voltage between the battery’s two electrodes, the cathode and the anode. The resulting electrical forces are strong enough to pull lithium atoms out of the cathode and to strip one electron from each atom. But when they drag the resulting ions through the electrolyte toward the anode, they hit the speed limit: Try to rush the ions along by upping the voltage too far and the electrolyte will chemically break down, ending the battery’s charging days forever.

So score one for solid-state batteries: Not only do the best superionic conductors offer a faster ion flow than liquid electrolytes, they also can tolerate higher voltages—all of which translates into EV recharges in under 10 minutes, versus half an hour or more for today’s lithium-ion power packs.

Score another win for solid-state when the ions arrive at the opposite electrode, the anode, during charging. This is where they reunite with their lost electrons, which have taken the long way around through the external circuit. And this is where standard lithium-ion batteries store the newly neutralized lithium atoms in a layer of graphite.

A solid-state battery doesn’t require a graphite cage to store lithium ions at the anode. This shrinks 

the overall size of the battery and increases its efficiency in uses such as an electric vehicle power 

pack. The solid-state design also replaces the porous membrane in the middle with a sturdier barrier. 

The aim is to create a battery that’s more light-weight, safer, stores more energy and makes recharging 

more convenient than current electric car batteries.

Credit: Knowable Magazine

Graphite anodes were a major commercial advance in 1991—the innovation that finally brought lithium-ion batteries out of the lab and into the marketplace. Graphite is cheap, chemically stable, excellent at conducting electricity, and able to slot those incoming lithium atoms into its hexagonal carbon lattice like so many eggs in an egg carton.

But graphite imposes yet another charging rate limit, since the lattice can handle only so many ions crowding in at once. And it’s heavy, wasting a lot of mass and volume on a simple container, says Louli: “Graphite is an accommodating host, but it does not deliver energy itself—it’s a passive component.” That’s why range-conscious automakers are eager for an alternative to graphite: The more capacity an EV can cram into the same-sized battery pack, and the less weight it has to haul around, the farther it can go on a single charge.

The ultimate alternative would be no cage at all, with no wasted space or weight—just incoming ions condensing into pure lithium metal with every charging cycle. In effect, such a metallic lithium anode would create and then dissolve itself with every charge and discharge cycle—while storing maybe 10 times more electrical energy per gram than a graphite anode.

Such lithium-metal anodes have been demonstrated in the lab since at least the 1970s, and even featured in some early, unsuccessful attempts at commercial lithium batteries. But even after decades of trying, says Louli, no one has been able to make metal anodes work safely and reliably in contact with liquid electrolytes. For one thing, he says, you get these reactions between your liquid electrolyte and the lithium metal that degrade them both, and you end up with a very bad battery lifetime.

And for another, adds Wachsman, “when you are charging a battery with liquids, the lithium going to the anode can plate out non-uniformly and form what are called dendrites.” These jagged spikes of metal can grow in unpredictable ways and pierce the battery’s separator layer: a thin film of electrically insulating polymer that keeps the two electrodes from touching one another. Breaching that barrier could easily cause a short circuit that abruptly ends the device’s useful life, or even sets it on fire.

Standard lithium-ion batteries don’t use lithium-metal anodes because there is too high a risk of the 

metal forming sharp spikes called dendrites. Such dendrites can easily pierce the porous polymer 

membrane that separates anode from cathode, causing a short-circuit or even sparking a fire. 

Solid-state batteries replace the membrane with a solid barrier.

Credit: Knowable Magazine

Now compare this with a battery that replaces both the liquid electrolyte and the separator with a solid-state layer tough enough to resist those spikes, says Wachsman. “It has the potential of, one, being stable to higher voltages; two, being stable in the presence of lithium metal; and three, preventing those dendrites”—just about everything you need to make those ultra-high-energy-density lithium-metal anodes a practical reality.

“That is what is really attractive about this new battery technology,” says Louli. And now that researchers have found so many superionic solids that could potentially work, he adds, “this is what’s driving the push for it.”

Manufacturing challenges

Increasingly, in fact, the field’s focus has shifted from research to practice, figuring out how to work the same kind of large-scale, low-cost manufacturing magic that’s made the standard lithium-ion architecture so dominant. These new superionic materials haven’t made it easy.

A prime example is the class of sulfides discovered by Japanese researchers in 2011. Not only were these sulfides among the first of the new superionics to be discovered, says Wachsman, they are still the leading contenders for early commercialization.

Major investments have come from startups such as Colorado-based Solid Power and Massachusetts-based Factorial Energy, as well as established battery giants such as China’s CATL and global carmakers such as Toyota and Honda.

And there’s one big reason for the focus on superionic sulfides, says Wachsman: “They’re easy to drop into existing battery cell manufacturing lines,” including the roll-to-roll process. “Companies have got billions of dollars invested in the existing infrastructure, and they don’t want to just displace that with something new.”

Yet these superionic sulfides also have some significant downsides—most notably, their extreme sensitivity to humidity. This complicates the drop-in process, says Oxford’s Pasta. The dry rooms that are currently used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries have a humidity content that is not nearly low enough for sulfide electrolytes, and would have to be retooled. That sensitivity also poses a safety risk if the batteries are ever ruptured in an accident, he says: “If you expose the sulfides to humidity in the air you will generate hydrogen sulfide gas, which is extremely toxic.”

All of which is why startups such as QuantumScape, and the Maryland-based Ion Storage Systems that spun out of Wachsman’s lab in 2015, are looking beyond sulfides to solid-state oxide electrolytes. These materials are essentially ceramics, says Wachsman, made in a high-tech version of pottery class: “You shape the clay, you fire it in a kiln, and it’s a solid.” Except that in this case, it’s a superionic solid that’s all but impervious to humidity, heat, fire, high voltage, and highly reactive lithium metal.

Yet that’s also where the manufacturing challenges start. Superionic or not, for example, ceramics are too brittle for roll-to-roll processing. Once they have been fired and solidified, says Wachsman, “you have to handle them more like a semiconductor wafer, with machines to cut the sheets to size and robotics to move them around.”

Then there’s the “reversible breathing” that plagues oxide and sulfide batteries alike: “With every charging cycle we’re plating and stripping lithium metal at the anode,” explains Louli. “So your entire cell stack will have a thickness increase when you charge and a thickness decrease when you discharge”—a cycle of tiny changes in volume that every solid-state battery design has to allow for.

At QuantumScape, for example, individual battery cells are made by stacking a number of gossamer-thin oxide sheets like a deck of cards, then encasing this stack inside a metal frame that is just thick enough to let the anode layer on each sheet freely expand and contract. The stack and the frame together are then vacuum-sealed into a soft-sided pouch, says Louli, “so if you pack the cells frame to frame, the stacks can breathe and not push on the adjacent cells.”

In a similar way, says Wachsman, all the complications of solid-state batteries have ready solutions—but solutions that inevitably add complexity and cost. Thus the field’s increasingly urgent obsession with manufacturing. Before an auto company will even consider adopting a new EV battery, he says, “it not only has to be better-performing than their current battery, it has to be cheaper.”

And the only way to make complicated technology cheaper is with economies of scale. “That’s why the biggest impediment to solid-state batteries is just the cost of standing up one of these gigafactories to make them in sufficient volume,” says Wachsman. “That’s why there’s probably going to be more solid-state batteries in early adopter-type applications that don’t require that kind of volume.”

Still, says Louli, the long-term demand is definitely there. “What we’re trying to enable by combining the lithium-metal anode with solid-state technology is threefold,” he says: “Higher energy, higher power and improved safety. So for high-performance applications like electric vehicles—or other applications that require high power density, such as drones or even electrified aviation—solid-state batteries are going to be well-suited.”

This story originally appeared in Knowable Magazine.

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But for millions around the world, this alarm never turns off. Long after a wound heals or an injury fades, the pain remains — relentless, invisible, and isolating. This is chronic pain, a condition that affects nearly 50 million people in the United States alone. For these individuals, the body’s warning signal becomes a constant scream.

“It’s not just an injury that won’t heal,” explains neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s a brain input that’s become sensitized and hyperactive.” In other words, the pain may not always be in the body — it may live in the brain itself.

The Brain’s Hidden Pain Switch

In groundbreaking research led by Betley and his collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh and Scripps Research Institute, scientists have uncovered a crucial piece of the puzzle — a specific group of brain cells that may control long-term pain.

These cells, known as Y1 receptor (Y1R)-expressing neurons, reside in a part of the brainstem called the lateral parabrachial nucleus (lPBN). This tiny region acts as a hub where the brain processes pain, hunger, thirst, and fear — all fundamental survival drives.

What makes these neurons so fascinating is that they seem to function like a biological “switchboard.” They help the brain decide which signals deserve attention. Should the body focus on hunger, or pain? On fear, or thirst? When danger or urgent need arises, the brain can, astonishingly, quiet the pain signal to prioritize survival.

The research, published in Nature, suggests that there is a built-in mechanism in the brain capable of turning down pain’s volume. “There are circuits in the brain that can reduce the activity of neurons that transmit the signal of pain,” the scientists report.

This discovery reframes how we understand chronic pain — not merely as a persistent signal from an injured body part, but as an ongoing miscommunication within the brain’s internal circuits.

Watching Pain in Real Time

To track these elusive neurons, the researchers used calcium imaging, a powerful technique that allows them to watch neurons fire in real time in animal models. The patterns were astonishing.

In response to acute pain, the Y1R neurons lit up briefly — like a spark. But during chronic pain, they stayed active, continuously firing in what neuroscientists call a “tonic” state. This steady hum of neural activity was like an idling engine — the pain persisted even when the external source of injury was gone.

Betley compares it to a car that keeps rumbling long after the key is removed from the ignition. “The signal of pain keeps running,” he explains, “even when it shouldn’t.” This ongoing neural rhythm may be what encodes the enduring sensation of pain that patients feel for months or even years after an injury heals.

Hunger, Fear, and the Power to Silence Pain

The path to this discovery began in 2015, when Betley noticed something curious: hunger seemed to dampen long-term pain responses.

“When you’re really hungry, you’ll do almost anything to get food,” he says. “It felt like hunger was more powerful than Advil at reducing pain.”

That simple observation led to a revolutionary idea — that the brain has a built-in hierarchy of needs, and when survival is at stake, it can suppress pain to focus on what’s more urgent.

Further experiments led by Betley’s graduate student, Nitsan Goldstein, revealed that other powerful instincts — such as thirst and fear — also reduced chronic pain responses. This suggested that the brain uses a kind of “priority filter” at the level of the parabrachial nucleus, blocking long-lasting pain when other life-preserving demands take over.

Goldstein explains it beautifully: “If you’re starving or facing a predator, you can’t afford to be overwhelmed by lingering pain. The brain releases chemicals that temporarily silence that signal so you can survive.”

Neuropeptide Y: The Chemical Messenger of Relief

At the center of this mechanism is a molecule called neuropeptide Y (NPY). This small but mighty neurotransmitter helps the brain manage conflicting needs — hunger, fear, and pain. When survival instincts dominate, NPY binds to Y1 receptors in the parabrachial nucleus, effectively dampening ongoing pain signals.

Goldstein likens it to an “override switch.” When the body is starving or in danger, the brain flips that switch, and pain fades into the background. It’s not that the pain disappears — it’s that the brain temporarily reorders its priorities.

This discovery reveals something profound about human biology: pain, though deeply personal and emotional, is also deeply programmable. The same brain that amplifies pain can also quiet it when it must.

A Mosaic of Pain and Possibility

When the researchers examined the structure of the Y1R neurons more closely, they found something unexpected — these neurons weren’t neatly clustered together. Instead, they were scattered across many different cell types, forming a mosaic pattern throughout the brainstem.

Fluorescent imaging of NPY+ neurons (green) throughout the brain are shown in addition to neurons in magenta that send projections to the PBN. Credit: J Nicholas Betley

“It’s like looking at cars in a parking lot,” Betley explains. “We expected all the Y1R neurons to be a cluster of yellow cars parked together, but they were like yellow paint splattered across red, blue, and green cars.”

This scattered organization may give the brain remarkable flexibility. It means that pain can be modulated across multiple circuits simultaneously, depending on context — whether the pain is physical, emotional, or environmental.

Rethinking Pain Treatment

The implications of this discovery are enormous. Chronic pain is one of medicine’s most challenging mysteries — often invisible, hard to diagnose, and resistant to treatment. Many patients live with pain that has no clear source or injury.

“What we’re showing,” says Betley, “is that the problem may not be in the nerves at the site of injury, but in the brain circuit itself.”

That insight opens an entirely new frontier in treatment. Instead of targeting the body’s nerves with drugs or surgery, scientists may one day be able to target these brain circuits directly — restoring balance to neurons that have become hyperactive.

Moreover, Betley believes that these Y1R neurons could serve as biomarkers — measurable indicators of chronic pain. For the first time, doctors could use brain imaging to identify and monitor persistent pain states, rather than relying solely on a patient’s description of their suffering.

Behavior, Mind, and the Modulation of Pain

Perhaps the most hopeful aspect of this research is that these pain circuits are not fixed — they are flexible. If hunger and fear can naturally suppress chronic pain, then behavioral interventions that tap into similar neural pathways may also help.

Exercise, meditation, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy — all of which have been shown to influence brain activity — might literally “train” the brain to quiet overactive pain circuits.

“The future isn’t just about designing a pill,” Betley emphasizes. “It’s about understanding how behavior, training, and lifestyle can change the way these neurons encode pain.”

This suggests a holistic new era in pain medicine — one where biology, psychology, and behavior work together to heal both body and mind.

The Future of Pain Science

The discovery of Y1R neurons and their connection to survival instincts redefines what it means to live with pain. It suggests that our brains are not passive victims of suffering — they are active regulators, capable of adaptation and recalibration.

For millions who endure chronic pain, this science offers a glimmer of hope: that the same brain which traps them in pain may also hold the key to freedom from it.

Pain, after all, is both a teacher and a storyteller. It warns, it protects, it reminds us we are alive. But sometimes, the story needs to change — from endless alarm to gentle awareness, from suffering to understanding.

And in that transformation, the brain — mysterious, adaptable, and compassionate — may be our greatest healer.

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Researchers who are seeking ways to diagnose a mysterious illness called chronic fatigue syndrome may have a new weapon in their armoury. In a study published in the Journal of Translational Medicine on 8 October1, scientists in the United Kingdom say they have found a way to distinguish epigenetic changes in the cells of people who have the condition, which is also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis.

A debilitating long-term illness, ME/CFS affects between 17 and 24 million people worldwide2, but these numbers are crude estimates because clinicians have long lacked reliable diagnostic tools for this poorly understood condition.

The results of the study show that the epigenetic test could be developed into a clinical biomarker for ME/CFS, said Dmitry Pshezhetskiy, a researcher–clinician at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, and lead author of the study, in a press release that was published alongside the paper. “With no definitive tests, many patients have gone undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for years.” He added that the discovery “offers the potential for a simple, accurate blood test to help confirm a diagnosis, which could lead to earlier support and more effective management”.

Others in the field have cautiously welcomed the findings, but they point out that the study was small and that more work is needed to convert the technique into a clinical tool.

Epigenetic markers

The underlying mechanisms of ME/CFS remain unclear, but evidence is building that one of the hallmarks of ME/CFS is immune dysregulation. The authors had already developed an assay that screens for epigenetic changes in immune cells in the blood, which they used to identify epigenetic signatures for a range of conditions including rheumatoid arthritis3. The assay analyses the way DNA is folded inside peripheral blood mononuclear cells, a key part of the immune system.

The researchers tested whether the same assay could be used to screen for similar epigenetic changes to immune cells in the blood of 47 individuals with severe ME/CFS, comparing the results with those from 61 healthy participants. The data showed that the assay achieved a 96% accuracy in diagnosing people with ME/CFS.

The authors found a network of genomic changes that were strongly involved in immune and inflammatory signalling. The authors say that this is consistent with an immune-dysregulation signal in ME/CFS, and underscores the strength of using these changes as biomarkers of the condition. And they say the changes they identified can be connected to specific regions of non-coding DNA, which can help to unpick the role of genetics in the condition and lead to a better mechanistic understanding.
“I think it’s really cool they brought this method to the field,” says Katie Glass, a molecular biologist who studies ME/CFS at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. “As far as it being a biomarker, my enthusiasm would be pretty tempered because the cohort is very small and they looked at only very severe patients.”

Many studies using various techniques to analyse everything from metabolites to free floating RNA in the blood have identified several apparent signatures of ME/CFS, adds Glass, who previously had the condition but has now recovered.

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Odontotermes obesus is one of the termite species that grows fungi, called Termitomyces, in their mounds. Workers collect dead leaves, wood, and grass to stack them in underground fungus gardens called combs. There, the fungi break down the tough plant fibers, making them accessible for the termites in an elaborate form of symbiotic agriculture.

Like any other agriculturalist, however, the termites face a challenge: weeds. “There have been numerous studies suggesting the termites must have some kind of fixed response—that they always do the same exact thing when they detect weed infestation,” says Rhitoban Raychoudhury, a professor of biological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education, “but that was not the case.” In a new Science study, Raychoudhury’s team discovered that termites have pretty advanced, surprisingly human-like gardening practices.

Going blind

Termites do not look like particularly good gardeners at first glance. They are effectively blind, which is not that surprising considering they spend most of their life in complete darkness working in endless corridors of their mounds. But termites make up for their lack of sight with other senses. "They can detect the environment based on advanced olfactory reception and touch, and I think this is what they use to identify the weeds in their gardens," Raychoudhury says. To learn how termites react once they detect a weed infestation, his team collected some Odontotermes obesus and challenged them with different gardening problems.

The experimental setup was quite simple. The team placed some autoclaved soil sourced from termite mounds into glass Petri dishes. On this soil, Raychoudhury and his colleagues placed two fungus combs in each dish. The first piece acted as a control and was a fresh, uninfected comb with Termitomyces. "Besides acting as a control, it was also there to make sure the termites have the food because it is very hard for them to survive outside their mounds," Raychoudhury explains. The second piece was intentionally contaminated with Pseudoxylaria, a filamentous fungal weed that often takes over Termitomyces habitats in termite colonies.

The team added the termites to the dishes along with a bit of water to make sure the environment was hospitable. Finally, the dishes were covered up and placed in total darkness in an incubator that maintained a temperature that accurately emulated the conditions in a termite mound.

"We observed what was going on in those dishes at regular time intervals and each time we took a peek, we took a photo," Raychoudhury says.

The resulting timelapses gave us the first glimpse at the way termites handled weed infestation in their fungal gardens. Their actions were completely different from the simple, fixed behaviors scientists expected to see.

Measured response

The first experiment was designed to simulate the very onset of Pseudoxylaria infestation in the colony. After the team placed a small piece of the weed on one of the combs in each dish, the termites had a wide range of tactics to deal with these early-stage infections. The most frequently used strategy saw the termites take three steps: "First, they removed the weed—took it away from the comb," Raychoudhury says. After the weed was removed, the termites buried it in the soil away from the combs. In the next step, they scraped off some of the comb where the weed had been located. This allowed the termites to contain the infection in 94 percent of samples.

"Then we said, ok, they can deal with early-stage infections—what about the scenarios where the infection gets through the initial stage and gets more severe?" Raychoudhury asked.

To bump the difficulty level up, the team performed another experiment where the termites had two pieces of comb again, only this time one of them was fresh and the other one contained mostly weeds. "We learned that termites did not try to retrieve [the] severely infected combs; they probably could determine these were beyond saving," Raychoudhury claims. To deal with these heavily infected combs, termites, simply covered them with soil.

The third experiment was aimed at learning how termites find the balance between how much of the infected comb they need to bury and how much they try to save. "By burying these combs, they are getting less and less space to grow their crops,” Raychoudhury says. “And termite colonies have millions of termites, and they all need to eat.” To trigger this kind of decision-making in termites, his team glued an infected piece of comb to a fresh piece of comb. The termites separated these combs along the joint where they were glued together and, as usual, covered the infected part with soil.

While most behaviors varied depending on the severity of the infection, covering the weed with soil was something termites did in almost every case. So, the team took a closer look at the dirt to figure out why it was so important in the process. It turned out the termites basically used it as a pesticide, but with a benevolent twist.

Benevolent agriculture

In the earlier research, Raychoudhury’s team learned that the microbes found in termite colonies were fungistatic—they inhibited the growth of fungi. It wasn’t clear why such microbes were there, since the termites’ very existence relies on growing fungi.

"The reason we provided termites with autoclaved soil in the first place was to rule out those fungistatic microbes came from the soil," Raychoudhury explains. It turned out the source of the microbes were the termites themselves, which form the soil into individual chunks the researchers call a bolus. "When they are making these boluses, they are secreting something out and whatever they are secreting comes from their gut," Raychoudhury explains. His team discovered that termites do not use those boluses indiscriminately but only apply them on the infested parts of their gardens. Unlike human pesticides, though, termite boluses were not lethal to the weed.

When Raychoudhury’s team recovered the weed termites buried with their fungistatic boluses, it was still able to grow. The result was to prevent the weed from spreading and doing harm to their crop, never to destroy it completely. "We don’t know exactly why they don’t kill it, but we have a hypothesis,” Raychoudhury claims. “I guess having a capacity to kill fungi when you grow fungi as food is just not a good strategy."

What scientists still need to find out is whether all the microbes the termites have in their gut are necessary for weed control, or whether there are just a few that play a major role in this process.

Termites live in a very confined environment with ideal growth conditions for various microbes. On top of that, the colonies have extremely low genetic variability since all the termites descend from the same queen and king. "These are perfect breeding grounds for many microbial pathogens," Raychoudhury explains. Finding out how termites deal with these pathogens is what his team wants to learn next. "How do they rid of these pathogens? In our experiments we only used the weed. Now we would like to use other pathogens and see how termites handle them," Raychoudhury says.

Science, 2025.  DOI: 10.1126/science.adr2713

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Earlier this week, AMD and OpenAI announced a bombshell partnership worth tens of billions of dollars, which will see AMD provide 6 gigawatts of computing power — via its Instinct AI GPUs — for the ChatGPT creator's next-gen AI infrastructure.

As part of the terms of the contract, OpenAI will buy the specialized Instinct chips and will have the opportunity to receive up to a 10% stake in AMD.

This news arrived roughly two weeks after NVIDIA announced it was investing $100 billion in OpenAI, which will see 10 gigawatts or more of NVIDIA AI GPUs head to the AI firm to help with the same AI infrastructure buildup.

These two major announcements, which see traditional rivals both funding the same AI company, have raised serious questions about the circular economy that is forming around the AI boom.

As Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist and AI expert, wrote in a recent newsletter, "the total value of the tech market as a whole, which is supposed to reflect the future value of the companies within it, far exceeds what is likely ever to be delivered."

Marcus adds, regarding the recent OpenAI and Oracle $300 billion cloud deal, that OpenAI doesn't have anywhere near $300 billion to spend, nor does Oracle have the ability to provide the contracted chips or the capital to buy them.

To say that there are growing fears of an impending AI bubble crash would be an understatement, but NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang remains as upbeat as ever. He sat down with CNBC's Squawk Box on Wednesday, where he was asked about his thoughts regarding the industry's circular funding approach.

Pressed about the fact that OpenAI doesn't have the money to pay for its side of the partnership, Huang says:

The topic then shifted to focus more on the circular economy, which has so many analysts worried about a bubble pop. Reviving the market horrors of Canadian telecom Nortel and American tech company Lucent in the early 2000s, host Rebecca Quick asks how the AI market is different.

Huang replies:

NVIDIA's CEO also notes that the modern AI infrastructure buildout is only getting started in 2025, and it's still in the transition stage from "classical CPU-based computing" to "generative AI computing powered by GPUs." Huang adds, "So far, we're a couple hundred billion dollars into a multi-trillion-dollar buildout."

There's another aspect of the AI economy that has Huang sitting comfortably: Tokens.

Tokens are essentially the foundation of Large Language Model (LLM) computing. They're how AI interprets commands and questions that arrive in natural language, and they're helpful in gauging how much it costs to run AI.

Huang explains that there has been a recent transition that "is really, really important." Whereas early AI models "weren't useful enough to pay for," Huang posits that the new AI technology of recent months is different.

Compute constraints, energy demands, and the search for AGI

Welcome to Edition 8.14 of the Rocket Report! We're now more than a week into a federal government shutdown, but there's been little effect on the space industry. Military space operations are continuing unabated, and NASA continues preparations at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, for the launch of the Artemis II mission around the Moon early next year. The International Space Station is still flying with a crew of seven in low-Earth orbit, and NASA's fleet of spacecraft exploring the cosmos remain active. What's more, so much of what the nation does in space is now done by commercial companies largely (but not completely) immune from the pitfalls of politics. But the effect of the shutdown on troops and federal employees shouldn't be overlooked. They will soon miss their first paychecks unless political leaders reach an agreement to end the stalemate.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Danger from dead rockets. A new listing of the 50 most concerning pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit is dominated by relics more than a quarter-century old, primarily dead rockets left to hurtle through space at the end of their missions, Ars reports. "The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem," said Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented October 3 at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. "Seventy-six percent of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century, and 88 percent of the objects are rocket bodies. That's important to note, especially with some disturbing trends right now."

Littering in LEO ... The disturbing trends mainly revolve around China's actions in low-Earth orbit. "The bad news is, since January 1, 2024, we've had 26 rocket bodies abandoned in low-Earth orbit that will stay in orbit for more than 25 years," McKnight told Ars. China is responsible for leaving behind 21 of those 26 rockets. Overall, Russia and the Soviet Union lead the pack with 34 objects listed in McKnight's Top 50, followed by China with 10, the United States with three, Europe with two, and Japan with one. Russia's SL-16 and SL-8 rockets are the worst offenders, combining to take 30 of the Top 50 slots. An impact with even a modestly sized object at orbital velocity would create countless pieces of debris, potentially triggering a cascading series of additional collisions clogging LEO with more and more space junk, a scenario called the Kessler Syndrome.

New Shepard flies again. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' space company, launched its sixth crewed New Shepard flight so far this year Wednesday as the company works to increase the vehicle’s flight rate, Space News reports. This was the 36th flight of Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard rocket. The passengers included: Jeff Elgin, Danna Karagussova, Clint Kelly III, Will Lewis, Aaron Newman, and Vitalii Ostrovsky. Blue Origin said it has now flown 86 humans (80 individuals) into space. The New Shepard booster returned to a pinpoint propulsive landing, and the capsule parachuted into the desert a few miles from the launch site near Van Horn, Texas.

Two-month turnaround ... This flight continued Blue Origin's trend of launching New Shepard about once per month. The company has two capsules and two boosters in its active inventory, and each vehicle has flown about once every two months this year. Blue Origin currently has command of the space tourism and suborbital research market as its main competitor in this sector, Virgin Galactic, remains grounded while it builds a next-generation rocket plane. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

NASA still interested in former astronaut's rocket engine. NASA has awarded the Ad Astra Rocket Company a $4 million, two-year contract for the continued development of the company's Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) concept, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. Ad Astra, founded by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz, claims the vehicle has the potential to reach Mars with human explorers within 45 days using a nuclear power source rather than solar power. The new contract will enable federal funding to support development of the engine's radio frequency, superconducting magnet, and structural exoskeleton subsystems.

Slow going ... Houston-based Ad Astra said in a press release that it sees the high-power plasma engine as "nearing flight readiness." We've heard this before. The VASIMR engine has been in development for decades now, beset by a lack of stable funding and the technical hurdles inherent in designing and testing such demanding technology. For example, Ad Astra once planned a critical 100-hour, 100-kilowatt ground test of the VASIMR engine in 2018. The test still hasn't happened. Engineers discovered a core component of the engine tended to overheat as power levels approached 100 kilowatts, forcing a redesign that set the program back by at least several years. Now, Ad Astra says it is ready to build and test a pair of 150-kilowatt engines, one of which is intended to fly in space at the end of the decade.

Gilmour eyes return to flight next year. Australian rocket and satellite startup Gilmour Space Technologies is looking to return to the launch pad next year after the first attempt at an orbital flight failed over the summer, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. "We are well capitalized. We are going to be launching again next year," Adam Gilmour, the company's CEO, said October 3 at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney.

What happened? ... Gilmour didn't provide many details about the cause of the launch failure in July, other than to say it appeared to be something the company didn't test for ahead of the flight. The Eris rocket flew for 14 seconds, losing control and crashing a short distance from the launch pad in the Australian state of Queensland. If there's any silver lining, Gilmour said the failure didn't damage the launch pad, and the rocket's use of a novel hybrid propulsion system limited the destructive power of the blast when it struck the ground.

Stoke Space's impressive funding haul. Stoke Space announced a significant capital raise on Wednesday, a total of $510 million as part of Series D funding. The new financing doubles the total capital raised by Stoke Space, founded in 2020, to $990 million, Ars reports. The infusion of money will provide the company with "the runway to complete development" of the Nova rocket and demonstrate its capability through its first flights, said Andy Lapsa, the company's co-founder and chief executive, in a news release characterizing the new funding.

A futuristic design ... Stoke is working toward a 2026 launch of the medium-lift Nova rocket. The rocket's innovative design is intended to be fully reusable from the payload fairing on down, with a regeneratively cooled heat shield on the vehicle's second stage. In fully reusable mode, Nova will have a payload capacity of 3 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, and up to 7 tons in fully expendable mode. Stoke is building a launch pad for the Nova rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

SpaceX took an unusual break from launching. SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket from Florida in 12 days during the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, Spaceflight Now reports. The launch gap was highlighted by a run of persistent, daily storms in Central Florida and over the Atlantic Ocean, including hurricanes that prevented deployment of SpaceX's drone ships to support booster landings. The break ended with the launch of 28 more Starlink broadband satellites. SpaceX launched three Starlink missions in the interim from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Weather still an issue ... Weather conditions on Florida's Space Coast are often volatile, particularly in the evenings during summer and early autumn. SpaceX's next launch from Florida was supposed to take off Thursday evening, but officials pushed it back to no earlier than Saturday due to a poor weather forecast over the next two days. Weather still gets a vote in determining whether a rocket lifts off or doesn't, despite SpaceX's advancements in launch efficiency and the Space Force's improved weather monitoring capabilities at Cape Canaveral.

ArianeGroup chief departs for train maker. Current ArianeGroup CEO Martin Sion has been named the new head of French train maker Alstom. He will officially take up the role in April 2026, European Spaceflight reports. Sion assumed the role as ArianeGroup's chief executive in 2023, replacing the former CEO who left the company after delays in the debut of its main product: the Ariane 6 rocket. Sion's appointment was announced by Alstom, but ArianeGroup has not made any official statement on the matter.

Under pressure ... The change in ArianeGroup’s leadership comes as the company ramps up production and increases the launch cadence of the Ariane 6 rocket, which has now flown three times, with a fourth launch due next month. ArianeGroup's subsidiary, Arianespace, seeks to increase the Ariane 6's launch cadence to 10 missions per year by 2029. ArianeGroup and its suppliers will need to drastically improve factory throughput to reach this goal.

New Glenn emerges from factory. Blue Origin rolled the first stage of its massive New Glenn rocket from its hangar on Wednesday morning in Florida, kicking off the final phase of the campaign to launch the heavy-lift vehicle for the second time, Ars reports. In sharing video of the rollout to Launch Complex-36 on Wednesday online, the space company did not provide a launch target for the mission, which seeks to put two small Mars-bound payloads into orbit. The pair of identical spacecraft to study the solar wind at Mars is known as ESCAPADE. However, sources told Ars that on the current timeline, Blue Origin is targeting a launch window of November 9 to November 11. This assumes pre-launch activities, including a static-fire test of the first stage, go well.

Recovery or bust? ... Blue Origin has a lot riding on this booster, named "Never Tell Me The Odds," which it will seek to recover and reuse. Despite the name of the booster, the company is quietly confident that it will successfully land the first stage on a drone ship named Jacklyn. Internally, engineers at Blue Origin believe there is about a 75 percent chance of success. The first booster malfunctioned before landing on the inaugural New Glenn test flight in January. Company officials are betting big on recovering the booster this time, with plans to reuse it early next year to launch Blue's first lunar lander to the Moon.

SpaceX gets bulk of this year's military launch orders. Around this time each year, the US Space Force convenes a Mission Assignment Board to dole out contracts to launch the nation's most critical national security satellites. The military announced this year's launch orders Friday, and SpaceX was the big winner, Ars reports. Space Systems Command, the unit responsible for awarding military launch contracts, selected SpaceX to launch five of the seven missions up for assignment this year. United Launch Alliance (ULA), a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, won contracts for the other two. These missions for the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office are still at least a couple of years away from flying.

Vulcan getting more expensive ... A closer examination of this year's National Security Space Launch contracts reveals some interesting things. The Space Force is paying SpaceX $714 million for the five launches awarded Friday, for an average of roughly $143 million per mission. ULA will receive $428 million for two missions, or $214 million for each launch. That's about 50 percent more expensive than SpaceX's price per mission. This is in line with the prices the Space Force paid SpaceX and ULA for last year's contracts. However, look back a little further and you'll find ULA's prices for military launches have, for some reason, increased significantly over the last few years. In late 2023, the Space Force awarded a $1.3 billion deal to ULA for a batch of 11 launches at an average cost per mission of $119 million. A few months earlier, Space Systems Command assigned six launches to ULA for $672 million, or $112 million per mission.

Starship Flight 11 nears launch. SpaceX rolled the Super Heavy booster for the next test flight of the company's Starship mega-rocket out to the launch pad in Texas this week. The booster stage, with 33 methane-fueled engines, will power the Starship into the upper atmosphere during the first few minutes of flight. This booster is flight-proven, having previously launched and landed on a test flight in March.

Next steps ... With the Super Heavy booster installed on the pad, the next step for SpaceX will be the rollout of the Starship upper stage. That is expected to happen in the coming days. Ground crews will raise Starship atop the Super Heavy booster to fully stack the rocket to its total height of more than 400 feet (120 meters). If everything goes well, SpaceX is targeting liftoff of the 11th full-scale test flight of Starship and Super Heavy as soon as Monday evening. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Blue Origin takes on a new line of business. Blue Origin won a US Space Force competition to build a new payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, Spaceflight Now reports. Under the terms of the $78.2 million contract, Blue Origin will build a new facility capable of handling payloads for up to 16 missions per year. The Space Force expects to use about half of that capacity, with the rest available to NASA or Blue Origin's commercial customers. This contract award follows a $77.5 million agreement the Space Force signed with Astrotech earlier this year to expand the footprint of its payload processing facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Important stuff ... Ground infrastructure often doesn't get the same level of attention as rockets, but the Space Force has identified bottlenecks in payload processing as potential constraints on ramping up launch cadences at the government's spaceports in Florida and California. Currently, there are only a handful of payload processing facilities in the Cape Canaveral area, and most of them are only open to a single user, such as SpaceX, Amazon, the National Reconnaissance Office, or NASA. So, what exactly is payload processing? The Space Force said Blue Origin's new facility will include space for "several pre-launch preparatory activities" that include charging batteries, fueling satellites, loading other gaseous and fluid commodities, and encapsulation. To accomplish those tasks, Blue Origin will create "a clean, secure, specialized high-bay facility capable of handling flight hardware, toxic fuels, and explosive materials."

Next three launches

Oct. 11: Gravity 1 | Unknown Payload | Haiyang Spaceport, China Coastal Waters | 02:15 UTC

Oct. 12: Falcon 9 | Project Kuiper KF-03 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 00:41 UTC

Oct. 13: Starship/Super Heavy | Flight 11 | Starbase, Texas | 23:15 UTC

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Posted Saturday 11 October 2025 at 3:40 am AEST (my time).

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A few days ago, an inscrutable interstellar interloper made its closest approach to Mars, where a fleet of international spacecraft seek to unravel the red planet's ancient mysteries.

Several of the probes encircling Mars took a break from their usual activities and turned their cameras toward space to catch a glimpse of an object named 3I/ATLAS, a rogue comet that arrived in our Solar System from interstellar space and is now barreling toward perihelion—its closest approach to the Sun—at the end of this month.

This is the third interstellar object astronomers have detected within our Solar System, following 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov discovered in 2017 and 2019. Scientists think interstellar objects routinely transit among the planets, but telescopes have only recently had the ability to find one. For example, the telescope that discovered Oumuamua only came online in 2010.

Detectable but still unreachable

Astronomers first reported observations of 3I/ATLAS on July 1, just four months before reaching its deepest penetration into the Solar System. Unfortunately for astronomers, the particulars of this object's trajectory will bring it to perihelion when the Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun. The nearest 3I/ATLAS will come to Earth is about 170 million miles (270 million kilometers) in December, eliminating any chance for high-resolution imaging. The viewing geometry also means the Sun's glare will block all direct views of the comet from Earth until next month.

Because of that, the closest any active spacecraft will get to 3I/ATLAS happened Friday, when it passed less than 20 million miles (30 million kilometers) from Mars. NASA's Perseverance rover and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter were expected to make observations of 3I/ATLAS, along with Europe's Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter missions.

The best views of the object so far have been captured by the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, positioned much closer to Earth. Those observations helped astronomers narrow down the object's size, but the estimates remain imprecise. Based on Hubble's images, the icy core of 3I/ATLAS is somewhere between the size of the Empire State Building to something a little larger than Central Park.

That may be the most we'll ever know about the dimensions of 3I/ATLAS. The spacecraft at Mars lack the exquisite imaging sensitivity of Webb and Hubble, so don't expect spectacular views from Friday's observations. But scientists hope to get a better handle on the cloud of gas and dust surrounding the object, giving it the appearance of a comet. Spectroscopic observations have shown the coma around 3I/ATLAS contains water vapor and an unusually strong signature of carbon dioxide extending out nearly a half-million miles.

On Tuesday, the European Space Agency released the first grainy images of 3I/ATLAS captured at Mars. The best views will come from a small telescope called HiRISE on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images from NASA won't be released until after the end of the ongoing federal government shutdown, according to a member of the HiRISE team.

Studies of 3I/ATLAS suggest it was probably kicked out of another star system, perhaps by an encounter with a giant planet. Comets in our Solar System sometimes get ejected into the Milky Way galaxy when they come too close to Jupiter. It roamed the galaxy for billions of years before arriving in the Sun's galactic neighborhood.

The rogue comet is now gaining speed as gravity pulls it toward perihelion, when it will max out at a relative velocity of 152,000 mph (68 kilometers per second), much too fast to be bound into a closed orbit around the Sun. Instead, the comet will catapult back into the galaxy, never to be seen again.

We need to talk about aliens

Anyone who studies planetary formation would relish the opportunity to get a close-up look at an interstellar object. Sending a mission to one would undoubtedly yield a scientific payoff. There's a good chance that many of these interlopers have been around longer than our own 4.5 billion-year-old Solar System.

One study from the University of Oxford suggests that 3I/ATLAS came from the "thick disk" of the Milky Way, which is home to a dense population of ancient stars. This origin story would mean the comet is probably more than 7 billion years old, holding clues about cosmic history that are simply inaccessible among the planets, comets, and asteroids that formed with the birth of the Sun.

This is enough reason to mount a mission to explore one of these objects, scientists said. It doesn't need justification from unfounded theories that 3I/ATLAS might be an artifact of alien technology, as proposed by Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb. The scientific consensus is that the object is of natural origin.

Loeb shared a similar theory about the first interstellar object found wandering through our Solar System. His statements have sparked questions in popular media about why the world's space agencies don't send a probe to actually visit one. Loeb himself proposed redirecting NASA's Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter on a mission to fly by 3I/ATLAS, and his writings prompted at least one member of Congress to write a letter to NASA to "rejuvenate" the Juno mission by breaking out of Jupiter's orbit and taking aim at 3I/ATLAS for a close-up inspection.

The problem is that Juno simply doesn't have enough fuel to reach the comet, and its main engine is broken. In fact, the total boost required to send Juno from Jupiter to 3I/ATLAS (roughly 5,800 mph or 2.6 kilometers per second) would surpass the fuel capacity of most interplanetary probes.

Ars asked Scott Bolton, lead scientist on the Juno mission, and he confirmed that the spacecraft lacks the oomph required for the kind of maneuvers proposed by Loeb. "We had no role in that paper," Bolton told Ars. "He assumed propellant that we don't really have."

So Loeb's exercise was moot, but his talk of aliens has garnered public attention. Loeb appeared on the conservative network Newsmax last week to discuss his theory of 3I/ATLAS alongside Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.). Predictably, conspiracy theories abounded. But as of Tuesday, the segment has 1.2 million views on YouTube. Maybe it's a good thing that people who approve government budgets, especially those without a preexisting interest in NASA, are eager to learn more about the Universe. We will leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions on that matter.

Loeb's calculations also help illustrate the difficulty of pulling off a mission to an interstellar object. So far, we've only known about an incoming interstellar intruder a few months before it comes closest to Earth. That's not to mention the enormous speeds at which these objects move through the Solar System. It's just not feasible to build a spacecraft and launch it on such short notice.

Now, some scientists are working on ways to overcome these limitations.

So you’re saying there’s a chance?

One of these people is Colin Snodgrass, an astronomer and planetary scientist at the University of Edinburgh. A few years ago, he helped propose to the European Space Agency a mission concept that would have very likely been laughed out of the room a generation ago. Snodgrass and his team wanted a commitment from ESA of up to $175 million (150 million euros) to launch a mission with no idea of where it would go.

ESA officials called Snodgrass in 2019 to say the agency would fund his mission, named Comet Interceptor, for launch in the late 2020s. The goal of the mission is to perform the first detailed observations of a long-period comet. So far, spacecraft have only visited short-period comets that routinely dip into the inner part of the Solar System.

A long-period comet is an icy visitor from the farthest reaches of the Solar System that has spent little time getting blasted by the Sun's heat and radiation, freezing its physical and chemical properties much as they were billions of years ago.

Long-period comets are typically discovered a year or two before coming near the Sun, still not enough time to develop a mission from scratch. With Comet Interceptor, ESA will launch a probe to loiter in space a million miles from Earth, wait for the right comet to come along, then fire its engines to pursue it.

Odds are good that the right comet will come from within the Solar System. "That is the point of the mission," Snodgrass told Ars.

But if astronomers detect an interstellar object coming toward us on the right trajectory, there's a chance Comet Interceptor could reach it.

"I think that the entire science team would agree, if we get really lucky and there's an interstellar object that we could reach, then to hell with the normal plan, let's go and do this," Snodgrass said. "It's an opportunity you couldn't just leave sitting there."

But, he added, it's "very unlikely" that an interstellar object will be in the right place at the right time. "Although everyone's always very excited about the possibility, and we're excited about the possibility, we kind of try and keep the expectations to a realistic level."

For example, if Comet Interceptor were in space today, there's no way it could reach 3I/ATLAS. "It's an unfortunate one," Snodgrass said. "Its closest point to the Sun, it reaches that on the other side of the Sun from where the Earth is. Just bad timing." If an interceptor were parked somewhere else in the Solar System, it might be able to get itself in position for an encounter with 3I/ATLAS. "There's only so much fuel aboard," Snodgrass said. "There's only so fast we can go."

It's even harder to send a spacecraft to encounter an interstellar object than it is to visit one of the Solar System's homegrown long-period comets. The calculation of whether Comet Interceptor could reach one of these galactic visitors boils down to where it's heading and when astronomers discover it.

Snodgrass is part of a team using big telescopes to observe 3I/ATLAS from a distance. "As it's getting closer to the Sun, it is getting brighter," he said in an interview.

"You don't have to claim that they're aliens to make these exciting," Snodgrass said. "They're interesting because they are a bit of another solar system that you can actually feasibly get an up-close view of, even the sort of telescopic views we're getting now."

Comets and asteroids are the linchpins for understanding the formation of the Solar System. These modest worlds are the leftover building blocks from the debris that coalesced into the planets. Today, direct observations have only allowed scientists to study the history of one planetary system. An interstellar comet would grow the sample size to two.

Still, Snodgrass said his team prefers to keep their energy focused on reaching a comet originating from the frontier of our own Solar System. "We're not going to let a very lovely Solar System comet go by, waiting to see 'what if there's an interstellar thing?'" he said.

Snodgrass sees Comet Interceptor as a proof of concept for scientists to propose a future mission specially designed to travel to an interstellar object. "You need to figure out how do you build the souped-up version that could really get to an interstellar object? I think that's five or 10 years away, but [it's] entirely realistic."

An American answer

Scientists in the United States are working on just such a proposal. A team from the Southwest Research Institute completed a concept study showing how a mission could fly by one of these interstellar visitors. What's more, the US scientists say their proposed mission could have actually reached 3I/ATLAS had it already been in space.

The American concept is similar to Europe's Comet Interceptor in that it will park a spacecraft somewhere in deep space and wait for the right target to come along. The study was led by Alan Stern, the chief scientist on NASA's New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto a decade ago. "These new kinds of objects offer humankind the first feasible opportunity to closely explore bodies formed in other star systems," he said.

It's impossible with current technology to send a spacecraft to match orbits and rendezvous with a high-speed interstellar comet. "We don't have to catch it," Stern recently told Ars. "We just have to cross its orbit. So it does carry a fair amount of fuel in order to get out of Earth's orbit and onto the comet's path to cross that path."

Stern said his team developed a cost estimate for such a mission, and while he didn't disclose the exact number, he said it would fall under NASA's cost cap for a Discovery-class mission. The Discovery program is a line of planetary science missions that NASA selects through periodic competitions within the science community. The cost cap for NASA's next Discovery competition is expected to be $800 million, not including the launch vehicle.

A mission to encounter an interstellar comet requires no new technologies, Stern said. Hopes for such a mission are bolstered by the activation of the US-funded Vera Rubin Observatory, a state-of-the-art facility high in the mountains of Chile set to begin deep surveys of the entire southern sky later this year. Stern predicts Rubin will discover "one or two" interstellar objects per year. The new observatory should be able to detect the faint light from incoming interstellar bodies sooner, providing missions with more advance warning.

"If we put a spacecraft like this in space for a few years, while it's waiting, there should be five or 10 to choose from," he said.

Winning NASA funding for a mission like Stern's concept will not be easy. It must compete with dozens of other proposals, and NASA's next Discovery competition is probably at least two or three years away. The timing of the competition is more uncertain than usual due to swirling questions about NASA's budget after the Trump administration announced it wants to cut the agency's science funding in half.

Comet Interceptor, on the other hand, is already funded in Europe. ESA has become a pioneer in comet exploration. The Giotto probe flew by Halley's Comet in 1986, becoming the first spacecraft to make close-up observations of a comet. ESA's Rosetta mission became the first spacecraft to orbit a comet in 2014, and later that year, it deployed a German-built lander to return the first data from the surface of a comet. Both of those missions explored short-period comets.

"Each time that ESA has done a comet mission, it's done something very ambitious and very new," Snodgrass said. "The Giotto mission was the first time ESA really tried to do anything interplanetary... And then, Rosetta, putting this thing in orbit and landing on a comet was a crazy difficult thing to attempt to do."

"They really do push the envelope a bit, which is good because ESA can be quite risk averse, I think it’s fair to say, with what they do with missions," he said. "But the comet missions, they are things where they've really gone for that next step, and Comet Interceptor is the same. The whole idea of trying to design a space mission before you know where you're going is a slightly crazy way of doing things. But it's the only way to do this mission. And it's great that we're trying it."

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Posted Friday 10 October 2025 at 2:12 am AEST (my time).

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Easter Island is famous for its giant monumental statues, called moai, built some 800 years ago and typically mounted on platforms called ahu. Scholars have puzzled over the moai on Easter Island for decades, pondering their cultural significance, as well as how a Stone Age culture managed to carve and transport statues weighing as much as 92 tons. One hypothesis, championed by archaeologist Carl Lipo of Binghamton University, among others, is that the statues were transported in a vertical position, with workers using ropes to essentially "walk" the moai onto their platforms.

The oral traditions of the people of Rapa Nui certainly include references to the moai "walking" from the quarry to their platforms, such as a song that tells of an early ancestor who made the statues walk. While there have been rudimentary field tests showing it might have been possible, the hypothesis has also generated a fair amount of criticism. So Lipo has co-authored a new paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science offering fresh experimental evidence of "walking" moai, based on 3D modeling of the physics and new field tests to recreate that motion.

The first Europeans arrived in the 17th century and found only a few thousand inhabitants on the tiny island (just 14 by 7 miles across) thousands of miles away from any other land. In order to explain the presence of so many moai, the assumption has been that the island was once home to tens of thousands of people. But Lipo thought perhaps the feat could be accomplished with fewer workers. In 2012, Lipo and his colleague, Terry Hunt of the University of Arizona, showed that you could transport a 10-foot, 5-ton moai a few hundred yards with just 18 people and three strong ropes by employing a rocking motion.

In 2018, Lipo followed up with an intriguing hypothesis for how the islanders placed red hats on top of some moai; those can weigh up to 13 tons. He suggested the inhabitants used ropes to roll the hats up a ramp. Lipo and his team later concluded (based on quantitative spatial modeling) that the islanders likely chose the statues' locations based on the availability of fresh water sources, per a 2019 paper in PLOS One.

The 2012 experiment demonstrated proof of principle, so why is Lipo revisiting it now? "I always felt that the [original] experiment was disconnected to some degree of theory—that we didn't have particular expectations about numbers of people, rate of transport, road slope that could be walked, and so on," Lipo told Ars. There were also time constraints because the attempt was being filmed for a NOVA documentary.

"That experiment was basically a test to see if we could make it happen or not," he explained. "Fortunately, we did, and our joy in doing so is pretty well represented by our hoots and hollers when it started to walk with such limited efforts. Some of the limitation of the work was driven by the nature of TV. [The film crew] just wanted us—in just a day and half—to give it a shot. It was 4:30 on the last day when it finally worked so we really didn't get a lot of time to explore variability. We also didn't have any particular predictions to test."

This time around, "We wanted to explore a bit of the physics: to show that what we did was pretty easily predicted by the physical properties of the moai—its shape, size, height, number of people on ropes, etc.—and that our success in terms of team size and rate of walking was consistent with predictions," said Lipo. "This enables us to address one of the central critiques that always comes up: 'Well, you did this with a 5-ton version that was 10 feet tall, but it would never work with a 30-ft-tall version that weighs 30 tons or more.'"

All about that base

You can have ahu (platforms) without moai (statues) and moai without ahu, usually along the roads leading to ahu; they were likely being transported and never got to their destination. Lipo and Hunt have amassed a database of 962 moai across the island, compiled through field surveys and photogrammetric documentation. They were particularly interested in 62 statues located along ancient transport roads that seemed to have been abandoned where they fell.

Their analysis revealed that these road moai had significantly wider bases relative to shoulder width, compared to statues mounted on platforms. This creates a stable foundation that lowers the center of mass so that the statue is more conducive to the side-to-side motion of walking transport without toppling over. Platform statues, by contrast, have shoulders wider than the base for a more top-heavy configuration.

The road moai also have a consistent and pronounced forward lean of between 6 degrees to 15 degrees from the vertical position, which moves the center of mass close to or just beyond the base's front edge. Lipo and Hunt think this was due to careful engineering, not coincidence. It's not conducive to stable vertical display but it is a boon during walking transport, because the forward lean causes the statue to fall forward when tilted laterally, with the rounded front base edge serving as a crucial pivot point. So every lateral rocking motion results in a forward "step."

Per the authors, there is strong archaeological evidence that carvers modified the statues once they arrived at their platform destinations, modifying the base to eliminate the lean by removing material from the front. This shifted the center of mass over the base area for a stable upright position. The road moai even lack the carved eye sockets designed to hold white coral eyes with obsidian or red scoria for pupils—a final post-transport step once the statues had been mounted on their platforms.

Based on 3D modeling, Lipo and his team created a precisely scaled replica of one of the road moai, weighing 4.35 metric tons with the same proportions and mass distribution of the original statue. "Of course, we’d love to build a 30-foot-tall version, but the physical impossibility of doing so makes it a challenging task, nor is it entirely necessary," said Lipo. "Through physics, we can now predict how many people it would take and how it would be done. That is key."

The new field trials required 18 people, four on each lateral rope and 10 on a rear rope, to achieve the side-to-side walking motion, and they were efficient enough in coordinating their efforts to move the statue forward 100 meters in just 40 minutes. That's because the method operates on basic pendulum dynamics, per the authors, which minimizes friction between the base and the ground. It's also a technique that exploits the gradual build-up of amplitude, which "suggests a sophisticated understanding of resonance principles," Lipo and Hunt wrote.

So the actual statues could have been moved several kilometers over the course of weeks with only modest-sized crews of between 20-50 people, i.e., roughly the size of an extended family or "small lineage group" on Easter Island. Once the crew gets the statue rocking side to side—which can require between 15 to 60 people, depending on the size and weight of the moai—the resulting oscillation only needs minimal energy input from a smaller team of rope handlers to maintain that motion. They mostly provide guidance.

Lipo was not the first to test the walking hypothesis. Earlier work includes that of Czech experimental archaeologist Pavel Pavel, who conducted similar practical experiments on Easter Island in the 1980s after being inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki. (Heyerdahl even participated in the experiments.) Pavel's team was able to demonstrate a kind of "shuffling" motion, and he concluded that just 16 men and one leader were sufficient to transport the statues.

Per Lipo and Hunt, Pavel's demonstration didn't result in broad acceptance of the walking hypothesis because it still required a huge amount of effort to tilt the statue, producing more of a twisting motion rather than efficient forward movement. This would only have moved a large statue 100 meters a day under ideal conditions. The base was also likely to be damaged from friction with the ground. Lipo and Hunt maintain this is because Pavel (and others who later tried to reproduce his efforts) used the wrong form of moai for those earlier field tests: those erected on the platforms, already modified for vertical stability and permanent display, and not the road moai with shapes more conducive to vertical transport.

"Pavel deserves recognition for taking oral traditions seriously and challenging the dominant assumption of horizontal transport, a move that invited ridicule from established scholars," Lipo and Hunt wrote. "His experiments suggested that vertical transport was feasible and consistent with cultural memory. Our contribution builds on this by showing that ancestral engineers intentionally designed statues for walking. Those statues were later modified to stand erect on ceremonial platforms, a transformation that effectively erased the morphological features essential for movement."

The evidence of the roadways

Lipo and Hunt also analyzed the roadways, noting that these ancient roadbeds had concave cross sections that would have been problematic for moving the statues horizontally using wooden rollers or frames perpendicular to those roads. But that concave shape would help constrain rocking movement during vertical transport. And the moai roads were remarkably level with slopes of, on average, 2–3 percent. For the occasional steeper slopes, such as walking a moai up a ramp to the top of an ahu, Lipo and Hunt's field experiments showed that these could be navigated successfully through controlled stepping.

Furthermore, the distribution pattern of the roadways is consistent with the road moai being left due to mechanical failure. "Arguments that the moai were placed ceremonially in preparation for quarrying have become more common," said Lipo. "The algorithm there is to claim that positions are ritual, without presenting anything that is falsifiable. There is no reason why the places the statues fell due to mechanical reasons couldn't later become 'ritual,' in the same way that everything on the island could be claimed to be ritual—a circular argument. But to argue that they were placed there purposefully for ritual purposes demands framing the explanation in a way that is falsifiable."

"The only line of evidence that is presented in this way is the presence of 'platforms' that were found beneath the base of one moai, which is indeed intriguing," Lipo continued. "However, those platforms can be explained in other ways, given that the moai certainly weren't moved from the quarry to the ahu in one single event. They were paused along the way, as is clear from the fact that the roads appear to have been constructed in segments with different features. Their construction appears to be part of the overall transport process."

Lipo's work has received a fair share of criticism from other scholars over the years, and his and Hunt's paper includes a substantial section rebutting the most common of those critiques. "Archaeologists tend to reject (in practice) the idea that the discipline can construct cumulative knowledge," said Lipo. "In the case of moai transport, we've strived to assemble as much empirical evidence as possible and have forwarded an explanation that best accounts for what we can observe. Challenges to these ideas, however, do not come from additional studies with new data but rather just new assertions."

"This leads the public to believe that we (as a discipline) can never really figure anything out and are always going to be a speculative enterprise, spinning yarns and arguing with each other," Lipo continued. "With the erosion of trust in science, this is fairly catastrophic to archaeology as a whole but also the whole scientific enterprise. Summarizing the results in the way we do here is an attempt to point out that we can build falsifiable accounts and can make contributions to cumulative knowledge that have empirical consequences—even with something as remarkable as the transport of moai."

Experimental archaeology is a relatively new field that some believe could be the future of archaeology. "I think experimental archaeology has potential when it's tied to physics and chemistry," said Lipo. "It's not just recreating something and then arguing it was done in the same way in the past. Physics and chemistry are our time machines, allowing us to explain why things are the way they are in the present in terms of the events that occurred in the past. The more we can link the theory needed to explain the present, the better we can explain the past."

DOI: Journal of Archaeological Science, 2025. 10.1016/j.jas.2025.106383  (About DOIs).

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Posted Friday 10 October 2025 at 2:11 am AEST (my time).

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Medications a person took years ago can still influence the community of microbes living in their gut, according to a large study conducted by the University of Tartu Institute of Genomics.

By examining stool samples and prescription data from more than 2,500 participants in the Estonian Biobank’s Microbiome cohort, scientists discovered that most drugs they analyzed were associated with measurable changes in the gut microbiome. Many of these changes persisted long after people stopped taking the medications. The lasting impact was not limited to antibiotics: antidepressants, beta-blockers, proton pump inhibitors, and benzodiazepines also left distinct microbial “fingerprints.

"Most microbiome studies only consider current medications, but our results show that past drug use can be just as important as it is a surprisingly strong factor in explaining individual microbiome differences," said Dr. Oliver Aasmets, lead author of the study. The findings underscore the importance of considering a person’s medication history when exploring connections between gut microbes and disease.

Interestingly, benzodiazepines -- commonly prescribed for anxiety -- produced microbiome alterations similar to those seen with broad-spectrum antibiotics. The study also revealed that drugs within the same category, such as diazepam and alprazolam, can vary in how much they disturb gut microbial balance.

Follow-up samples from a smaller group of participants showed that starting or discontinuing specific medications led to predictable shifts in gut microbes, supporting a likely cause-and-effect relationship. Although this second phase involved fewer samples, the researchers confirmed persistent effects from proton pump inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and several antibiotics, including penicillins in combination and macrolides.

"This is a comprehensive systematic evaluation of long-term medication effects on the microbiome using real-world medical health records," said Professor Elin Org, the study’s corresponding author. "We hope this encourages researchers and clinicians to factor in medication history when interpreting microbiome data."

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But for some, the aftereffects of a good workout can be slightly more bizarre. From bloody noses to "coregasms", here are some of the strangest things that can happen to your body as a result of exercise:

1. Metallic taste

Some people find that when exercising, they get a metallic taste in their mouth.

This is caused by the increases in heart rate and blood pressure that occur when we exercise. Over prolonged periods, this increased pressure can cause the small, delicate blood vessels in our nose to rupture.

This can either result in a nosebleed or it can run backwards into your throat, where you'll taste the blood. The iron in blood is what causes the metallic taste.

Some evidence suggests that this metallic taste can also result from small blood vessels in the lungs rupturing. This phenomenon is most commonly seen in elite cyclists and ultra-marathon runners, likely due to the lengthy strain their lungs are placed under.

2. Bleeding from the anus and nipples

Exercise can also cause bleeding from other unexpected places.

For instance, long-distance running can induce bleeding from the anus. This is caused by changes to how blood flow is distributed in the body during exercise.

At rest, the gastrointestinal tract receives about 25% of the blood from the heart. But during exercise, this drops by about 80% as more blood is delivered to the muscles, heart, and lungs. This causes a short-term lack of oxygen to the gastrointestinal tissues.

But when blood flow returns to normal after a run, the increased flow can damage the gastrointestinal tract's tiny blood vessels. This causes bleeding from the anus – which, in some cases, can be life-threatening.

Nipples are another sore spot that can bleed after a run due to chafing from clothes. The more you run per week, the more likely you are to experience this. Almost 40% of people who run more than 65km a week report having had "jogger's nipple."

Cold weather will make this worse as the nipples become erect, causing greater irritation and a focused point of contact. Sweat can worsen it, too, as it reduces the protective barrier on the skin's surface.

Luckily, this can easily be prevented. A bit of petroleum jelly, for instance, can help you avoid irritation on your runs.

3. Rashes

When we exercise, we sweat. This is our body's natural way of cooling off.

But dead skin cells, dirt, and microbes can all cause this sweat to become trapped in the pores beneath the skin's surface. This can lead to heat rash – an itchy, prickly, or stinging sensation in the skin.

Sweating while exercising can lead to a heat rash. (doucefleur/doucefleur's Images/Canva)

This rash typically disappears on its own. It can be prevented by wearing looser clothing during workouts, exercising in a cooler environment, or applying cool compresses to the skin after a workout.

Urticaria is another rash that may appear – also triggered by heat or exercise. Urticaria is typically more painful and itchy than a heat rash and often requires antihistamines to reduce the symptoms. It's caused by the release of histamine (an immune chemical) when the body is exposed to the trigger.

4. Blackened toenails

Although this condition is commonly called "runner's toenail", it isn't exclusive to these athletes. Any sport – including tennis and dancing – where there's repetitive impact and pressure on the toes can cause toenails to blacken and even fall off.

Wearing properly fitting footwear that prevents the toes from rubbing and being squished in the shoe will reduce the risk of this.

5. Runny nose

The rapid breathing we do during a workout can increase the number of irritants, debris, and microbes that enter the body through the nose.

In response, the body begins producing more nasal fluids to wash them out – and prevent drying out. This results in a runny nose – a sign the body's protective mechanisms are on the offensive.

Exercise-induced rhinitis is extremely common in swimmers and those who exercise in cold air – such as cross-country skiers. This is because these environments are very punishing on the mucous membranes.

6. Red eyes

Heavy lifting or straining during a workout can potentially cause structural damage to the eyes.

When we strain, it spikes our blood pressure – and this pressure can cause the small vessels in the white of the eyes to rupture. This is called a subconjunctival haemorrhage.

Bloodshot eyes can result from straining in a workout. (inkdrop/Canva)

7. Coregasms

For some people, exercise can induce sexual pleasure – an exercise-induced orgasm or "coregasm." While abdominal and core muscle exercises are common triggers, they aren't the only exercises that can induce one. Some people have reported experiencing them while cycling, weight lifting, running, doing yoga, or even walking.

Women tend to experience them more than men, but it isn't known how much more common it is as studies are limited.

A person's unique anatomy, as well as their physical, physiological, and mental state, all likely play a role in whether or not a coregasm occurs. The feel-good neurotransmitters released by exercise (such as endorphins) are also recognised to be "orgasm accelerators", so these probably also play a role.

Thankfully most of these exercise-induced ailments are short-lived and can easily be remedied at home during your next rest day. Any that don't should be checked by a doctor or nurse.

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Vijaya Gadde, former Chief Legal Officer of Twitter, testifies during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing about Twitter's handling of a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden and his laptop, in Washington, U.S. February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein Purchase Licensing Rights

A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the X logo are seen in this illustration taken January 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Oct 8 (Reuters) - Elon Musk and X Corp have reached a settlement in a lawsuit by four former top executives at Twitter, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, who claim they were not paid $128 million in promised severance pay after Musk acquired the social media company and fired them.

The terms of the settlement, which was first announced in a filing in San Francisco federal court last week, were not disclosed. A federal judge on October 1 pushed back filing deadlines and a hearing in the case so the settlement can be finalized.

X in August agreed to settle a separate lawsuit by rank-and-file Twitter employees who lost their jobs during mass layoffs and claimed they were owed $500 million in unpaid severance.

The cases are among a series of legal challenges that Musk, the world's richest person, has faced after he acquired Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, cut more than half of its workforce and renamed it X.

X and lawyers for the former Twitter executives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The plaintiffs are Agrawal; Ned Segal, Twitter's former chief financial officer; Vijaya Gadde, its former chief legal officer; and Sean Edgett, its former general counsel.

The former executives say that Musk falsely accused them of misconduct and forced them out of Twitter after they sued him for attempting to renege on his offer to purchase the company.

Musk then denied the executives severance pay they had been promised for years before he acquired Twitter, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs say they each are owed one year's salary and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of stock options.
Musk and X have denied wrongdoing and said the executives were fired over their performance.

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In a case report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, the expert and the man's other doctors lay out the masterful medical deduction that explained his remarkable case—which had an entirely unremarkable cause.

It all started about two weeks before his hospital visit. A mild, dull pain had developed in the patient's right lower abdomen and back. Nine days later, a fever and body aches also developed. The next day, he went to urgent care, where clinicians gave him intravenous fluids and an intravenous pain reliever. His abdominal pain went away, and he was discharged. But the pain returned over the next few days, and with it came nausea and vomiting. He then started coughing and having trouble breathing.

Complex case

The day before his hospital visit, he went back to urgent care. He now looked unwell and his eyes were yellowing, his heart was racing, and his blood pressure was worryingly low, as was his oxygen saturation, at just 85 percent. Clinicians could hear crackling in his lungs, and his abdomen was more tender than ever. They sent him to the emergency department.

There, doctors confirmed what the urgent care had found, noting he was also coughing up tan mucus. They also looked at his medical history, which was relatively short. He was born in Central America, but he had lived in the US for 16 years. He worked in construction, lived in a Boston suburb with his partner and two children, and didn't seem to have any medical problems except a history of alcohol use disorder. He typically drank four to five beers a night during the week and up to a dozen a day during the weekends, though he said he hadn't been drinking during his illness.

Blood and urine tests found his platelet levels were extremely low, and there were signs of liver disease. Chest imaging showed haziness in his lungs, suggesting inflammation and infection. Computed tomography (CT) scans confirmed the lung findings but also showed an enlarged liver, thickened bile duct, multiple swollen lymph nodes, a contracted gallbladder, and a blood clot in the vein from his right kidney. On close inspection, there also seemed to be a bridge of soft tissue spanning his duodenum (the first part of the small intestine) and the right kidney. More lab results then came back showing bacteria growing in his blood.

Doctors admitted him to the hospital, started him on intravenous antibiotics, and transfused him with platelets. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) confirmed the blood clot and the odd soft tissue bridge. In his first hospital day, the lab identified the bacteria in his blood as Streptococcus anginosus, a bacterium that typically colonizes the upper respiratory tract but can cause infections when the opportunity arises—such as when there is an injury in the gastrointestinal tract.

Clinical reasoning

This is where the master clinician Gurpreet Dhaliwal of the University of California, San Francisco, came in. Dhaliwal could not identify a single diagnosis that could convincingly explain all the problems at once, so he reasoned out a causal pathway—a sequence of events that could explain it all.

He started with the most obvious part of the pathway—the man had developed sepsis, which tied the man's blood and liver findings with the identification of the bacteria in his blood. Because S. anginosus is linked to injuries in the gastrointestinal tract, he next turned to the strange soft tissue bridge between the duodenum and the right kidney. The duodenum was thickened, suggesting an injury or perforation. And the soft tissue bridge between that part of the intestine and the right kidney could have harbored the bacteria. An infection and inflammation there could also explain the clot. But what caused the duodenum injury to begin with?

And what about the lungs? A number of things could explain the problems in his lungs—including infections from soil bacteria he might encounter in his construction work or a parasitic infection found in Central America. But the cause that best fit was common pneumonia and, more specifically, based on the distribution of opacities in his lung, pneumonia caused by aspiration (inhaling food particles or other things that are not air)—which is something that can happen when people drink excessive amounts of alcohol, as the man regularly did.

"Ethanol impairs consciousness and blunts protective reflexes (e.g., cough and gag), which disrupts the normal control mechanisms of the upper aerodigestive tract," Dhaliwal noted.

And this is where Dhaliwal made a critical connection. If the man's drinking led him to develop aspiration pneumonia—accidentally getting food in his lungs—he may have also accidentally gotten nonfood in this gastrointestinal tract at the same time.

Critical connection

The things people most commonly swallow by accident include coins, button batteries, jewelry, and small bones. But these things tend to show up in imaging, and none of the imaging revealed a swallowed object. Things that don't show up on images, though, are things made of plants.

"This reasoning leads to the search for an organic object that might be ingested while eating and drinking and is seemingly harmless but becomes invasive upon entering the gastrointestinal tract," Dhaliwal wrote.

"The leading suspect," he concluded, "is a wooden toothpick—an object commonly found in club sandwiches and used for dental hygiene. Toothpick ingestions often go unnoticed, but once identified, they are considered medical emergencies owing to their propensity to cause visceral perforation and vascular injury."

If a toothpick had pierced the man's duodenum, it would completely explain of all the man's symptoms. He drank too much and lost control of his aerodigestive tract, leading to aspiration that caused pneumonia, and he then swallowed a toothpick, which perforated the duodenum and led to sepsis.

Dhaliwal recommended an endoscopic procedure to look for a toothpick in his intestines. On the man's third day in the hospital, he had the procedure, and, sure enough, there was a toothpick, piercing through his duodenum and into his right kidney, just as Dhaliwal had deduced.

Doctors promptly removed it and treated the man with antibiotics. He went on to make a full recovery. At a nine-month follow-up, he continued to do well and had maintained abstinence from alcohol.

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