All posts tagged: Science

The Jurassic Period’s ‘top predator’ was smaller than a house cat

The Jurassic Period’s ‘top predator’ was smaller than a house cat

Published by Jenni Sidey

A 165-million-year-old fossil reveals a half-meter-long mammal relative adapted for hunting in water. Its skull and throat bones suggest a swallowing system with features important for drinking and suckling. The soft palate and muscles were reconstructed from bones, while its swimming behavior and diet remain anatomical inferences. A furry predator only half a meter long carried surprisingly modern feeding machinery through Jurassic waters. Its hooked teeth helped grip slippery prey, while bones inside its skull suggest a throat equipped for controlled swallowing. Their anatomical analysis connects two evolutionary stories: the early spread of swimming lifestyles and the development of mammalian feeding structures. Crucially, the fossil preserves the bony framework for reconstructing soft tissues, rather than a surviving soft palate itself. Megacauda sungei in three views: – a) Photograph of the fossil. b) X-ray fluorescence image (the skeleton is shown in yellow, the remains of the coat and soft tissue in dark gray, and the surrounding sediment in turquoise), c) Diagram with the most important bones labeled. (CREDIT: Li et al., Nature 2026) A heavyweight among …

Scientists demonstrate sustained operation of the world’s first self-regulating nuclear clock

Scientists demonstrate sustained operation of the world’s first self-regulating nuclear clock

Published by Jenni Sidey

A thorium-229 nuclear clock in Vienna ran for more than 24 hours without intervention, automatically correcting its laser frequency. The crystal-based prototype establishes a working feedback system for a new approach to precision timekeeping and fundamental physics. It has not surpassed the best optical atomic clocks, and a preliminary dark-matter search found no significant signal. A crystal containing thorium nuclei kept a laser on frequency for more than 24 hours without anyone adjusting it. The Vienna experiment marks a transition from measuring a nuclear resonance to using that resonance to control a working clock. Scientists at TU Wien and Germany’s Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, or PTB, report the prototype in Nature. Led by Thorsten Schumm and Ekkehard Peik, the collaboration built a feedback loop that automatically corrects the laser. An earlier companion paper established the absorption measurements that made those corrections possible. Conventional atomic clocks use transitions between electronic energy states as their reference. This device instead relies on a transition within the nucleus of thorium-229. Its designers hope nuclear timekeeping will eventually offer greater precision and …

Ancient skull fractures strengthen evidence of human sacrifice around Egypt’s royal burials

Ancient skull fractures strengthen evidence of human sacrifice around Egypt’s royal burials

Published by Jenni Sidey

Eighteen of 46 skulls from subsidiary burials at Abydos showed potentially lethal injuries inflicted near the time of death. The findings strengthen evidence that some members of Egypt’s early royal households were sacrificed to accompany deceased rulers. The incomplete sample cannot establish how all retainers died, whether injuries caused death, or whether anyone volunteered. Fractures once treated as damage from an ancient burial environment may instead record violence against people associated with Egypt’s earliest rulers. A reassessment of 46 preserved skulls from Abydos identified potentially lethal injuries near the time of death in 18 individuals, or 39% of the sample. The findings strengthen the case for retainer sacrifice, the killing of household or court members to accompany a deceased ruler. They also challenge a century-old claim that these remains showed no evidence of serious trauma. The surviving bones cannot establish every person’s cause of death. Purdue University anthropologist Roselyn Campbell discusses the reassessment in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. The archaeological case study draws on her earlier analyses to examine how forensic advances change interpretations of …

Physicists use 3D light pulses to unlock new electron quantum states

Physicists use 3D light pulses to unlock new electron quantum states

Published by Jenni Sidey

Two shaped laser pulses crossing at 45 degrees created controllable electric fields that oscillate in three spatial directions. Experiments with potassium produced previously unobserved electron wave-packet patterns and tracked ultrafast spin-orbit dynamics. The results establish a laboratory approach to quantum control; proposed uses in distinguishing chiral molecules still require demonstration. Two laser pulses meeting at an angle gave physicists access to electron states that conventional planar light fields cannot generate. By shaping the pulses, the team changed how electrons escaped potassium atoms, producing previously unobserved patterns in their momentum distributions. The experiment, led by Matthias Wollenhaupt at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, appears in Physical Review Research. The study combines controlled light fields with measurements of emitted electrons. It also demonstrates a method for following rapid changes in excited atomic states. The findings provide an experimental foundation for proposals involving chiral light and molecular sensing. Those applications concern distinguishing structures with different handedness, but the reported tests used potassium atoms rather than chiral molecules. Using an interferometer, the researchers split laser light into two …

Article in Top Science Journal Endorses ‘Nature Rights’

Article in Top Science Journal Endorses ‘Nature Rights’

Published by Jenni Sidey

This article is republished from National Review with the permission of the author. The world’s two most influential professional science journals probably are Science and Nature. But they no longer limit their jurisdiction to science. Both are now highly ideological to the extent that each has now lent its august pages to boosting the “nature rights” movement. Science pushed “nature rights” back in 2019. Now Nature has jumped on the bandwagon, publishing an advocacy piece to coincide with Panama’s pushing a “Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature” in the United Nations General Assembly. The article’s title starts out making a hubristic assumption: “Nature has Rights: It’s Time the World Recognized Them.” Image Credit: StraSyP – Adobe Stock Really? Since when? Based on what? Says who? “Nature rights” laws are meant to hamstring human thriving in the name of fighting climate change (among other environmental causes) through the means of destroying disfavored industries like oil and natural gas and undermining capitalism. From the article: As catastrophic climate and ecological change continues to unfold around us, …

Astronomers discover a ‘phoenix planet’ reborn from the ashes of a dead star

Astronomers discover a ‘phoenix planet’ reborn from the ashes of a dead star

Published by Jenni Sidey

A white dwarf’s unusual chemistry points to a giant planet containing material shed during the star’s death. If confirmed, the system would provide the first evidence of a second-generation planet around a white dwarf. A 4.4-day brightness cycle supports the interpretation, but the planet’s existence and formation history remain unconfirmed. A dead star’s atmosphere contains an unusual clue to a possible new beginning: heavy elements that may come from a planet formed after the star died. The white dwarf HS 0209+0832 appears to be collecting material unlike the rocky debris normally detected around these stellar remnants. A University of Warwick-led team reports the finding in a study published in Nature Astronomy. Supported by the European Research Council, the researchers identify the system as a second-generation planet candidate. Their evidence combines chemical measurements, stellar atmosphere models and a repeating brightness signal. Such a world would differ from planets that survive their host star’s transformation. Rather than forming alongside a young star, it would contain material expelled during stellar death. The proposed explanation remains an inference, although …

New AI can reconstruct what you’re looking at by reading brain activity

New AI can reconstruct what you’re looking at by reading brain activity

Published by Jenni Sidey

Brain-IT reconstructs images people viewed during fMRI scans, improving the recovery of both visual content and spatial arrangement. After training across participants, it produced competitive reconstructions with one hour of data from a new person. The experimental system still makes mistakes; decoding dreams, enabling patient communication and use with EEG remain proposed extensions. A dog in a bathtub became a similarly colored goat. A cake turned into three sandwiches. These mistakes reveal the limits of an AI system that can otherwise reconstruct surprisingly detailed images from the brain activity of someone viewing them. Together, the projects tackle two directions of the same problem: predicting brain responses to images and reconstructing images from those responses. The demonstrated task concerns pictures viewed during scanning, while applications involving dreams or patient communication remain research ambitions. Reconstruction of seen images from fMRI using “Brain-IT”. (a) Image reconstructions using the full NSD dataset (40 hours per subject). (b) Efficient Transfer-learning to new subjects with very little data: Meaningful reconstructions are obtained with only 15 minutes of fMRI recordings. (CREDIT: Michal …

Scientists use generative AI to build better proteins for editing DNA

Scientists use generative AI to build better proteins for editing DNA

Published by Jenni Sidey

AI-designed proteins improved targeted DNA insertion in cultured cells, with one variant doubling the performance of an existing system. A search of 31,565 genomes uncovered thousands of PiggyBac relatives, expanding the proteins available for gene-insertion research. Results varied across cell types and editing tasks; safety, specificity and therapeutic effectiveness still require investigation. A protein designed with artificial intelligence doubled targeted DNA insertion in cultured cells when incorporated into an experimental gene-editing system. The result emerged from a search through thousands of genomes, followed by laboratory tests of natural and synthetic proteins. The findings expand the available tools for inserting genes, including into human immune cells. They also expose an important distinction: improving one step of gene editing does not necessarily improve every application. Dimitrije Ivančić (co-first author of the paper), Marc Güell (ICREA researcher and CSO of Integra Therapeutics), Avencia Sanchez-Mejías (CEO of Integra Therapeutics) and Alejandro Agudelo (co-first author of the paper). (CREDIT: Pompeu Fabra University) Searching nature for overlooked DNA movers PiggyBac transposases can cut DNA cargo out of a donor molecule and …

Higher body weight linked to lower risk of death from dementia

Higher body weight linked to lower risk of death from dementia

Published by Jenni Sidey

Higher body mass index at dementia onset was associated with lower mortality in an analysis of 4,523 U.S. adults. Class I obesity was associated with a 27% lower mortality hazard than normal weight, after adjustments for other factors. The observational study does not show that weight gain improves survival; the reasons for the association remain uncertain. People who were overweight or obese when dementia emerged had lower mortality than those in the normal weight range. The finding persisted after researchers examined several biases that might otherwise explain this counterintuitive pattern. The results concern an association among people who developed dementia. They do not establish that excess weight caused longer survival, and they do not test whether deliberately gaining weight would help. The authors instead emphasize nutrition and the possible value of weight status alongside other prognostic factors. Dr. Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health and a core faculty member of the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center. (CREDIT: Columbia University) Lower mortality across three weight groups …

Experiment: Discover the science behind afterimages

Experiment: Discover the science behind afterimages

Published by skeptic

Objective: Investigate color perception by observing afterimages, which are the images left on your retina after you stare at an object and then look away. Areas of Science: Human Biology & Health Difficulty: Intermediate medium Time required: Short (2-5 days) Prerequisites: A computer with internet access is recommended. Material availability: Readily available Cost: Very Low (under $20) Safety: No issues Credits: David Whyte, PhD, Science Buddies We perceive color in the world around us with special sensory cells, called cone cells. Cone cells function in bright light and are responsible for color vision and high-acuity vision, which allows you to see fine details. Cone cells reside in the region at the back of the eye called the fovea. The fovea is quite small, about 1 square millimeter (mm) (0.00155 square inch). It is amazing to think that color and detail we see depends on such a small bit of tissue! There are three types of cone cells, loosely called blue, green and red, depending on which type of light they respond to best. When you look at a red object, for example, …