404 Media

2026-03-17 17:29:36

Was Life Seeded from Space? ‘Complete Set’ of DNA Ingredients Discovered on Asteroid

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Scientists have discovered all five nucleobases—the fundamental components of DNA and RNA—in pristine samples from the asteroid Ryugu, according to a study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy. The finding strengthens the case that the ingredients for life are abundant in the solar system and may have found their way to Earth from space, according to a study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy.

Life as we know it runs on DNA and RNA, which are built from five chemical bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil. A team has now identified this “complete set” of nucleobases in rocks snatched from the surface of Ryugu in 2019 by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2, which successfully returned them to Earth the following year.

This discovery corroborates the results from another mission, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx, which returned samples of the asteroid Bennu that also contained all five nucleobases. Both asteroids belong to the same “carbonaceous” (C-type) family of primitive carbon-rich rocks, though the samples contain different ratios of the five nucleobases.

Taken together, the findings shed light on the origin of life on Earth and raise new questions about the odds that it exists elsewhere.

“These findings suggest that nucleobases may be widespread in carbonaceous asteroids and, by extension, in planetary systems,” said Toshiki Koga, a postdoctoral researcher at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), in an email to 404 Media.

“This means that some of the key molecular ingredients for life could be commonly available,” he added. “However, this does not imply that life itself is widespread, but rather that the chemical starting materials for life may be more common than previously thought.”

The emergence of life on Earth, also known as abiogenesis, remains one of the biggest mysteries in science. To untangle this enigma, scientists first need to figure out how our planet was initially enriched with the basic stuff of life—including water, amino acids, and the nucleobases that make up our genetic material.
The “Ryugu Story” illustration depicting the detection of all five canonical nucleobases in samples returned from asteroid Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 mission. Image: JAMSTEC
One popular hypothesis suggests that asteroids bearing these biological building blocks pelted Earth as it formed more than four billion years ago. This idea has been supported by the presence of nucleobases in pieces of carbonaceous asteroids that have fallen down to Earth, such as the Murchison meteorite of Australia or the Orgueil meteorite of France.

Meteorites, however, are not pristine as they become eroded by exposure to space and can also be contaminated by terrestrial material after landing on Earth. To get cleaner samples, scientists launched several spacecraft to grab samples directly from the source, beginning with Japan’s Hayabusa mission, which delivered several milligrams of dusty grains from asteroid Itokawa to Earth in 2010.

Hayabusa-2 and OSIRIS-REx then obtained even larger samples from their targets, bringing back 5.4 grams from Ryugu and 121.6 grams from Bennu. Previous studies have already identified more than a dozen amino acids associated with life in both samples, as well as evidence that these asteroids were once altered by ice and water.

Now, following the discovery of all five nucleobases in the Bennu pebbles, Koga and his colleagues have found the complete set in Ryugu. The findings lend weight to the so-called “RNA world” model of abiogenesis. In this hypothesis, early life on Earth depended solely on RNA as a self-replicating molecule, laying the biological groundwork for later, more complicated systems that involved DNA and protein-based organisms. The extraterrestrial samples from Ryugu and Bennu provide evidence that at least some of the nucleobases that made up these early lifeforms came from outer space.

The results were “broadly in line with our expectations, but still very exciting to confirm,” Koga said. “All five nucleobases had already been detected in the Murchison meteorite and in samples from the asteroid Bennu. Since Ryugu is also a carbonaceous asteroid, we expected that these molecules might be present, and it was very satisfying to confirm that the complete set is indeed present in the Ryugu samples.”

But while both samples contained the royal flush of nucleobases, they differed in their relative abundances. For example, Bennu is much richer in pyrimidine nucleobases (cytosine, thymine and uracil) than Ryugu, though they both contain roughly similar levels of purine nucleobases (adenine and guanine). These idiosyncrasies point to a variety of formation processes that produced prebiotic materials on these celestial relics.

“Our results suggest that nucleobases can form under a range of conditions in early Solar System materials, particularly within primitive asteroid parent bodies that experienced aqueous alteration,” Koga said. “The observed relationship between nucleobase composition and ammonia abundance indicates that local chemical environments, such as the availability of ammonia, may play an important role.”

“At the same time, some precursor molecules may have formed earlier in interstellar environments, so nucleobase formation could involve multiple stages,” he continued. “Future studies, including analyses of different types of meteorites and laboratory experiments that simulate these conditions, will help to better constrain these formation pathways.”

In other words, understanding how these molecules form in space could help answer the age-old mystery of whether life is a rare cosmic fluke—or a common process in the universe. The research also highlights the remarkable ingenuity behind these sample-return missions, which have delivered tiny time capsules from the birth of our solar system directly into our hands.

“It is both exciting and humbling to work with these samples,” Koga said. “They are extremely limited and represent material that has remained largely unchanged since the early Solar System. At the same time, there is a strong sense of responsibility, because each tiny grain may contain important information about how organic molecules formed and evolved before the origin of life.”

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Sugars, ‘Gum,’ Stardust Found in NASA's Asteroid Bennu Samples - NASA

The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists’ biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life. As

^{Abby Tabor (NASA)}

404 Media

2026-03-14 13:00:25

Alien Life Might Exist on the Starless Moons of Rogue Planets, Scientists Say

Welcome back to the Abstract! These are the studies this week that searched for life in the dark, stood up for hedgehogs, dropped some wisdom, and died in an inexplicably epic explosion.

First, aliens might be riding around interstellar space on exomoons, just in case that’s of interest to you. Then: an ultrasonic solution to roadkill, the limits of metrification, and an answer to a cosmic mystery.

As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliensor subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files. b

The view from a rogue exomoon

Dahlbüdding, David et al. “Habitability of Tidally Heated H2-Dominated Exomoons around Free-Floating Planets.”

Living on a planet with a boring old Sun is for normies. In a new study, astronomers suggest that alien life could potentially emerge in a much more unexpected place—”exomoons” that orbit free-floating planets in interstellar space.

There are likely trillions of rogue planets wandering through the Milky Way, untethered to any star, raising the tantalizing mystery of whether any of them could be habitable. Now, researchers led by David Dahlbüdding of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) extend this question to exomoons that were dragged out into interstellar space with their planets.

“The search for exomoons within conventional stellar systems continues with no confirmed detection to date,” the team said. “Thus, free-floating planets might offer an alternative pathway for the first discovery of an exomoon.”

In other words, astronomers have never clearly seen an exomoon. But new techniques for spying free-floating worlds—such as microlensing, which reveals objects through the warped light of their gravity—could provide the sensitivity that is required for this long-sought detection.

With regard to potential habitability, Dahlbüdding and his colleagues focused specifically on exomoons that orbit planets with thick hydrogen atmospheres. If such a pair were to be kicked out of a star system, the exomoon’s orbit could become stretched out into a far more elliptical shape. This shift would cause the planet to exert more intense tidal forces onto its satellite, generating heat that could keep liquid water flowing on the moon over vast timescales.

“Close encounters before the final ejection even increase the ellipticity of the moon’s orbit, boosting tidal heating over millions to billions of years, depending on the moon’s and free-floating planet’s properties,” the team said. The tidal forces and atmospheric components could also “create favourable conditions for RNA polymerisation and thus support the emergence of life.”

“These potentially habitable moons could be detected through a variety of techniques,” including microlensing, the researchers added, though they noted that actually analyzing their atmospheres “may not be feasible with any instruments currently in operation.”

While we may not be able to spot signs of life on these worlds anytime soon, it would be exciting just to discover a planet and a moon bound together, but unbound from any star, which is a genuine near-term possibility.

In other news…

Ultra-sonic the hedgehog

Rasmussen, Sophie Lund et al. “Hearing and anatomy of the ear of the European hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus.” Biology Letters.

Hedgehogs have long been ubiquitous in Europe, but cars now kill up to one-third of their population each year. Even more nightmarish, the advent of robotic lawn mowers has led to an uptick in hedgehog deaths.

To help protect these iconic critters, scientists suggest testing out acoustic repellents. A series of experiments with 20 hedgehogs from a wildlife rescue established that “hedgehogs can perceive a broad ultrasonic range,” with peak sensitivity around 40 kHz.
Rasmussen, who goes by Dr. Hedgehog, with a hedgehog. Image: Joan Ostenfeldt
The results “show a potential for the development of targeted ultrasonic sound repellents to deter hedgehogs temporarily from potential dangers such as the particular models of robotic lawn mowers found to be hazardous to hedgehog survival, and more importantly, cars,” said researchers led by Sophie Lund Rasmussen of the University of Oxford.

“Designing sound repellents for cars to reduce the high number of road-killed hedgehogs enhances animal welfare and supports conservation of this declining flagship species,” the team concluded.

To channel the old joke, why did the hedgehog cross the road? Answer: Ideally it didn’t, due to scientific intervention. (I’ll be here all night).

Dropping in on science history

Cornu, Armel et al. “The drop and the metric system: how an unruly unit survived revolutions.” Annals of Science.

The metric system has been adopted by every country except Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States. But even as metrication was rapidly embraced in the 17th and 18th centuries, a far more imprecise system—the drop—refused to drop out.

People have measured liquids in drop form for thousands of years, and still do in many contexts today. Researchers led by Armel Cornu of Uppsala University have now explored how such “non-standard units survive lengthy waves of standardization.” The paper is worth a read for its many interesting asides, like how acids were tested “by counting the number of drops…that could be placed on the skin before one witnessed the effects.” Gnarly.

It also gets into the political dimensions of metrication, including this proto-populist justification for standardizing units: “Numerous complaints about the diversity of measurements and their lack of cross-readability” were directed with “a special ire at powerful lords who abused standards in order to extort the population,” Cornu’s team said. The metric system was one response to "the discontent of peasants and the little people against the powerful.”

Anyway, a little bit of drop-related science history never hurt anyone—unless you volunteered to be an acid tester.

A (dead) star is born

Farah, Joseph et al. “Lense–Thirring precessing magnetar engine drives a superluminous supernova.” Nature.

Astronomers have discovered the mysterious power source of rare and radiant stellar explosions called “Type I superluminous supernovae” which are ten times brighter than regular supernovae.

The secret superluminous sauce, as it turns out, is the birth of a magnetar, a highly magnetized stellar remnant, according to a supernova first observed in December 2024. The light from this stellar explosion contained imprints of the Lense–Thirring effect, in which spacetime is dragged around by massive and rapidly rotating objects, a key sign of a magnetar origin.
Artist’s conception of a magnetar surrounded by an accretion disk exhibiting Lense-Thirring precession. Image: Joseph Farah and Curtis McCully
“Our observations are consistent with a magnetar centrally located within the expanding supernova ejecta,” said researchers led by Joseph Farah of Las Cumbres Observatory. “These results provide the first observational evidence of the Lense–Thirring effect in the environment of a magnetar and confirm the magnetar spin-down model as an explanation for the extreme luminosity observed in Type I superluminous supernovae.”

“We anticipate that this discovery will create avenues for testing general relativity in a new regime—the violent centres of young supernovae,” the team concluded.

Forget “stellar” as slang for great; we have graduated to “superluminous.”

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

First Contact

A narrative and visual exploration of humanity’s age-old search for and fixation with extraterrestrials.First Contact explores the ancient idea—and epic ...

^{Hachette Book Group}

404 Media

2026-03-07 14:00:31

Humanity Has Altered an Asteroid’s Orbit Around the Sun

Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that moved the heavens, coveted crystals, dined on lunar legumes, and got a four-star review.

First, humanity has permanently signed its name into the orbital dynamics of the solar system. Take the win! Then, we’ve got the origins of our obsession with sparkly rocks, a stint of extraterrestrial gardening, and a story of stellar significance.

As always, for more of my work, check out my bookFirst Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.

DART delivers an orbital bullseye

Makadia, Rahil and Steven R. Chesley. “Direct detection of an asteroid’s heliocentric deflection: The Didymos system after DART.” Science.

Well folks, pack it up: Humanity has shifted the path of a celestial object around the Sun.

You may remember NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, which slammed into an asteroid named Dimorphos in September 2022. Dimorphos, which is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza, orbits an asteroid named Didymos, roughly five times bigger. In the aftermath of the crash, scientists determined that DART had successfully shifted Dimorphos’ path around Didymos, shortening its roughly 11-hour orbit by 33 minutes.

Now, scientists have confirmed that the mission also changed the entire binary system’s “heliocentric” orbit around the Sun. While scientists had expected the spacecraft to push this pair of asteroids off-kilter, a new study has now quantified the impact by presenting “the first-ever measurement of human-caused change in the heliocentric orbit of a celestial body.”

The team determined that the system’s pace around the Sun was slowed by about 10 micrometers per second as a result of the mighty spaceship wallop. It took years to refine that measurement, which the researchers calculated with radar and stellar occultations, which are observations of the system against background stars.
youtube.com/embed/N-OvnVdZP_8?…
But it’s worth the wait to know that we shifted a celestial object’s circuit around the Sun, even by a tiny bit—an achievement that may come in handy if we ever need to deflect an asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth.

“By demonstrating that asteroid deflection missions such as DART can effect change in the heliocentric orbit of a celestial body, this study marks a notable step forward in our ability to prevent future asteroid impacts on Earth,” said researchers co-led by Rahil Makadia of the University of Illinois Urbana-­Champaign and Steven R. Chesley of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

So, forget moving mountains—we’ve graduated to moving space rocks.

For anyone interested in learning more about DART, I highly recommend How to Kill an Asteroid by Robin George Andrews, which provides a fascinating inside account of the mission.

In other news…

Chimps glimpse a “big beyond”

García-Ruiz, Juan Manuel et al. “On the origin of our fascination with crystals.” Frontiers in Psychology.

It’s crystal clear: We clearly love crystals. Humans and our early hominin relatives have collected crystals for nearly 800,000 years, making them “among the first natural objects collected by hominins without any apparent utilitarian purpose,” according to a new study.

To explore the origins of this fascination, scientists gave chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, a bunch of sparkly crystals at an ape preserve in Spain. The chimps were intrigued by the offerings; indeed, one female named Sandy immediately absconded with a large crystal dubbed the “Monolith” and took it back to her group’s indoor dormitory for two days.
Chimp Toti attentively observes the quartz crystal during Experiment 1. Image: García-Ruiz et al., 2026.
“When the team of caretakers tried to retrieve the crystal, it took hours to exchange it for valuable ‘gifts’ (i.e., favored food items—bananas and yogurt—which are known from daily observations to be highly appreciated by the chimpanzees), which suggests that the crystal was highly valued,” said researchers led by Juan Manuel García-Ruiz of Donostia International Physics Center.

“Crystals may have contributed to the development of metaphysical and symbolic thinking, acting as catalysts for the conceptualization of a ‘big beyond,’” the team concluded.

Shining moonbeams on moon beans

Atkin, Jessica et al. “Bioremediation of lunar regolith simulant through mycorrhizal fungi and plant symbioses enables chickpea to seed.” Scientific Reports.

Scientists are finally addressing my dream of enjoying locally-grown falafel on the Moon. In a new study, a team experimented with planting chickpeas in lunar regolith simulant (LRS), a human-made substance that mimics lunar soil.

The results revealed that chickpeas could flower and produce seeds in the simulant, provided that it was treated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) which are fungal microbes known to protect plant health. Small additions of vermicompost also helped the Moon beans flourish.
The Moon chickpeas. Image: Jessica Atkin
“Plants seeded successfully in mixtures containing up to 75 percent LRS when inoculated with AMF,” said researchers led by Jessica Atkin of Texas A&M University. “Higher LRS concentrations induced stress; however, plants grown in 100 percent LRS inoculated with AMF demonstrated an average extension of two weeks in survival compared to non-inoculated plants.”

“We present a step toward sustainable agriculture on the Moon, addressing the fundamental challenges of using Lunar regolith as a plant growth medium,” the team concluded.

Who knows if we’ll ever live off the lunar land, but as a garbanzo fanzo, I’m hoping for heavenly hummus.

TIC 120362137 is the real quad god

Borkovits, T., Rappaport, S.A., Chen, HL. et al. “Discovery of the most compact 3+1-type quadruple star system TIC 120362137.” Nature Communications.

Three-body problems are so last season; the era of the quadruple star system is upon us. In a new study, scientists unveil the most compact quartet of stars ever discovered, known as TIC 120362137, which is about 2,000 light years from Earth.

“This inner subsystem, which contains three stars that are more massive and hotter than the Sun, is more spatially compact than Mercury’s orbit around our Sun, and is orbited by a fourth Sun-like star with a period of 1,046 days,” said researchers co-led by Tamás Borkovits and Saul A. Rappaport of the University of Szeged, Hai-Liang Chen of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Guillermo Torres of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian.

“To our knowledge, there are no other known, similarly compact and tight, planetary-system-like 3 + 1 quadruple stellar systems,” the team added.

The researchers predicted that this fantastic foursome will eventually merge together into a pair of dead stars known as white dwarfs in about nine billion years. No planets have been found in this system, and it may be that it is too dynamically eccentric to host them. Still, it’s fun to imagine the view from such a hypothetical world, with four Suns in its sky. Eat your heart out, Tatooine.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

Bioremediation of lunar regolith simulant through mycorrhizal fungi and plant symbioses enables chickpea to seed - Scientific Reports

Food sustainability is a significant challenge for long-term space travel. Plants can provide fresh nutrition, reducing reliance on packaged foods.

^Nature

404 Media

2026-03-04 00:01:04

The Sun Is 'Glitching.' Scientists Investigated and Solved a Cosmic Mystery

Scientists have peered inside the Sun and observed subtle shifts and “glitches” that have occurred over four decades, shedding light on the enigmatic long-term vibrations of our star, reports a study published on Tuesday in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Sun goes through a roughly 11-year cycle that includes a period of high and low activity, known as solar maximum and minimum. The past few cycles have revealed changes in solar behavior that could have implications for predicting space weather and unraveling the internal dynamics of our Sun, along with other Sun-like stars.

To drill down on this mystery, researchers with the Birmingham Solar-Oscillations Network (BiSON), a network of telescopes that have monitored the Sun since the 1970s, compared the last four solar minima using this unique 40-year dataset and focused on internal vibrations that make the sun subtly oscillate.

“The entire Sun oscillates in a globally coherent way, and the oscillations are formed by sound waves trapped inside the Sun that make it resonate just like a musical instrument,”said Bill Chaplin, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Birmingham who co-authored the study, in a call with 404 Media.

“For this particular study, we were interested in seeing whether there are differences in what the Sun is doing in its structure when you focus on the periods or epochs when the Sun is very quiet,” he continued. “The last few cycles have seen some quite marked changes in behavior.”

For example, scientists have been perplexed for years by an unusually long and quiet solar minimum between cycle 23 to 24, which occurred from 2008 to 2009. Chaplin and his colleagues were able to use BiSON’s long record of asteroseismology—the study of stellar interiors—to directly contrast the interior vibrations of the Sun during this minimum to others.

“There were hints that there were things that were different” about this cycle, said Chaplin. “But now that we have the cycle 24-25 minimum—the last one in about 2019—in the bag, then we thought, ‘okay, now's the time to actually go back and look at this.’”

The team specifically looked for an acoustic wave “glitch” caused by an interior layer in which helium atoms lose electrons, producing a detectable change in the Sun’s internal structure. This glitch was significantly stronger during the 2008–2009 minimum, suggesting that the Sun’s outer interior was slightly hotter and allowed sound waves to travel faster at that time of magnetic weakness.

“The ionizing helium affects the speed at which the sound waves move through that region,” explained Chaplin. “It leaves a characteristic imprint.”

“It's not just that there is a difference with the other cycles, but it's starting to tell us about what physically has really changed beneath the surface,” he added. “They're quite subtle changes, but it's nevertheless giving us clues as to what is actually happening beneath the Sun during this very quiet period.”

The results confirm that the Sun doesn’t return to the same minimum baseline at the end of every cycle, and its activity varies within timescales of decades and centuries. For example, Chaplin pointed to one bizarrely long quiet period from 1645 to 1715, known as the Maunder Minimum.

Astronomers during this time marvelled at the prolonged lack of visible sunspots on the Sun’s surface, a sign of extremely low solar activity. Centuries later, BiSON and other solar observatories are allowing scientists to study the interior dynamics behind these shifts in depth for the first time.

“This is the first step in actually demonstrating that there are changes,” Chaplin said. “Does this mean that there are systematic changes in the way that the Sun is generating its field? It's really only now, because we have this long dataset, that we can start to ask questions like that. Previously, we just didn't have enough data to say.”

Scientists hope to keep recording the long-term behavior of the Sun with projects like BiSON so that we can better understand its mercurial nature over time. This is interesting work on its own merits, but it is also useful for refining forecasts of space storms that can wreak havoc on power grids and space assets (while also producing pretty auroras).

Chaplin also nodded to the European space telescope PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO), due for launch in 2027. This mission will search for analogous oscillations in stars beyond the Sun, building on similar work conducted by NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope.

Studying the vibrations of the Sun and other similar stars is not only important for life here on Earth; it also has implications in the search for extraterrestrial life, because local solar activity is one key to assessing the habitability of star systems similar to our own.

“The data that we have on other stars from Kepler has really helped to understand and get a better picture of the cyclic variability of other stars, like the Sun,” Chaplin concluded. “But it's still not an entirely clear picture; let's put it that way. Seismology now enables you to do really detailed analysis of stars that you can't do by other means.”

404 Media

2026-02-28 20:48:27

Scientists Reveal the Surprising Sex Lives of Neanderthals and Early Humans

Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that exposed prehistoric hookups, marched toward death, feasted on their own bodies, and found a buried legend in the Sahara.

First, Neanderthal males had lots more babies with human females than human males had with Neanderthal females. What’s up with that?! Then, strap in for a stellar swan song, antlers for breakfast, and a timeless style icon from the Cretaceous.

As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.

Dad’s a Neanderthal, Mom’s a human, I’m in therapy

Platt, Alexander et al. “Interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was strongly sex biased.” Science.

Humans and our close relatives, Neanderthals, produced children together many times before the latter went extinct about 40,000 years ago. As a result, the vast majority of people living today carry a pinch of Neanderthal DNA—the enduring proof of past copulations between our species.

Now, scientists have proposed that these prehistoric partnerships overwhelmingly occurred between Neanderthal males and females of our own species, Homo sapiens, with far fewer couplings between Neanderthal females and human males. This strong sexual bias provides the most "parsimonious” explanation for the uneven distribution of Neanderthal alleles (variants of specific genes) in modern human genomes, according to a new study.

“One of the notable features evident in alignments of Neanderthal genomes to those of modern humans is the presence of ‘Neanderthal deserts’ within modern human genomes: genomic regions where Neanderthal alleles are conspicuously rare in the modern human (and ancient modern human) gene pool,” said researchers led by Alexander Platt of the University of Pennsylvania.
This meme, provided by lead author Alexander Platt, is NOT part of the scientific study. But perhaps somebody should consider founding a journal where memes are acceptable figures.
In particular, the team noted that Neanderthal deserts show up on the human X chromosome, which they think hints at a strong sex bias toward breeding between Neanderthal males and human females.

The team compared Neanderthal genomes with genetic data from some sub-Saharan African populations that have no Neanderthal ancestry. This approach allowed them to track ancient gene flow from anatomically modern humans (AMHs)—in other words, our ancient Homo sapiens ancestors—into Neanderthal populations.

The results revealed that the Neanderthal X chromosomes had a 62 percent relative excess of DNA from AMHs. In other words, not only are there Neanderthal deserts on human X chromosomes, there are corollary “floods” or “oases” (whatever metaphor you like) of human DNA on Neanderthal X chromosomes.

This discovery is strong evidence that humans were contributing more alleles to the Neanderthal X chromosome, and Neanderthals were contributing less to the human X chromosome, due to an unexplained asymmetry in mate preference.

Overall, the genetic patterns the team observed “were likely colored by a persistent preference for pairings between males of predominantly Neanderthal ancestry and females of predominantly AMH ancestry over the reverse,” the researchers concluded. “The bias that we inferred seems to have remained consistent across admixture events separated by 200,000 years.”

Men prefer blondes; women prefer Neanderthals? I don’t know. This is just wildly interesting.

In other news…

A (hypergiant) star is born

Muñoz-Sanchez, Gonzalo et al. “The dramatic transition of the extreme red supergiant WOH G64 to a yellow hypergiant.” Nature Astronomy.

We’ve all been there: One day, you’re an extreme red supergiant, and the next, you’re a yellow hypergiant. A new study reports that WOH G64, one of the biggest known stars in the sky, went through this “dramatic transition” sometime in 2014 (or at least, that’s when astronomers first captured this spectral shift in the star, which is located about 163,000 light years from Earth).
Concept art of WOH G64, a cosmic eye of Sauron. Image: ESO / L. Calçada
If the Sun were as big as WOH G64, it would stretch to the orbit of Saturn. This late-stage stellar titan offers an ultra-rare opportunity to see how red supergiants (RSGs) end their lives, a process that is shrouded in mystery—often literally, as these stars tend to be obscured by a lot of circumstellar gas.

“The apparent lack of luminous RSGs detected as supernova progenitors has sparked an ongoing debate over the fate of these stars,” said researchers led by Gonzalo Muñoz-Sanchez of the National Observatory of Athens. “WOH G64 thus provides critical insight into post-RSG evolution and the formation of dense circumstellar environments seen in core-collapse supernovae.”

It could be that WOH G64 does detonate. In fact, this may have already happened, but the light show hasn’t reached us yet. It may also collapse directly into a black hole with no supernova to show for it. We’ll just have to keep watching this space! This has been Big Star News.

That’s deer-licious

Gaetano, Madison et al. “A Gnawing Question: How Do Caribou and Other Arctic Mammals Exploit Shared Bone Resources?” Ecology and Evolution.

Antlers in deer are usually a male ornamentation that allows females to judge potential mates based on the quality of their head-bling. Caribou females, however, buck this trend as the only female deer with antlers. So, as a folktale might ask: How did the caribou get her antlers?

One answer is that antlers make a great post-partum snack, according to a new study. In migratory populations, female caribou shed their antlers when they reach calving grounds, usually just days before they give birth, which may give nursing mothers a much-needed vitamin boost.
Percentages of antlers (light gray) and skeletal bones (dark gray) modified by caribou (ruminants), rodents, or carnivorans. Image: Gaetano, Madison et al.
“Pervasive antler consumption by caribou suggests that synchroneity between birthing and antler shedding evinces the importance of nutrient (calcium, phosphorus) transport for supporting calf survival,” said researchers led by Madison Gaetano of the University of Cincinnati. “Though intriguing, additional research will be important to more explicitly evaluate the dietary and fitness benefits (for both females and their calves) of antler-derived nutrients.”

Given that caribou also eat their placentas, it’s really impressive how these new mothers nourish themselves and their young with the fruits of their own bodies. Hardcore. Respect.

New spinosaur just dropped

Sereno, Paul C. et al. “Scimitar-crested Spinosaurus species from the Sahara caps stepwise spinosaurid radiation.” Science.

Speaking of animals with rad headgear, we’ll close with a shoutout to Spinosaurus mirabilis, a newly-discovered species of giant carnivorous dinosaur that rocked an epic scimitar-shaped skull crest. Move over, rock band T. Rex—this killer is the new wave of dinosaurian glam.
Spinosaurus mirabilis, pictured with a guinea fowl N. meleagris, a much smaller and less frightening modern analog. Scale bar, 20 cm for S. mirabilis and 3 cm for fowl. Image: Flesh rendering and layout by Dani Navarro; Adult skull cast by the Fossil Lab; helmeted guinea fowl images by Todd Green
“Spinosaurus mirabilis…discovered in the central Sahara alongside long-necked dinosaurs in a riparian habitat, is distinguished by a scimitar-shaped bony crest projecting far above its skull roof,” said researchers led by Paul C. Sereno of the University of Chicago.

Spinosaurus stock has gone through the roof in recent decades as new finds have confirmed that they were the biggest land predators of all time, dethroning T-rex from a tyrant king to a mere tyrant vassal. As the ultimate charismatic megafauna, spinosaurs are popular in dino-blockbusters. Indeed, one of my favorite gags in cinematic history is when a Spinosaurus swallows a satellite phone in Jurassic Park III, so you know it’s lurking when you hear the Nokia ring tone. Pure dinosaurian comedic gold.
youtube.com/embed/cVA4BO2v7zs?…
In any case, the new study sheds new light into the semi-aquatic nature of this majestic hunter, suggesting that this particular species was “a wading, shoreline predator with visual display an important aspect of its biology.” While this animal was no doubt visually captivating, it’s best to view it from a safe distance of about 94 million years.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

First Contact

A narrative and visual exploration of humanity’s age-old search for and fixation with extraterrestrials.First Contact explores the ancient idea—and epic ...

^{Hachette Book Group}

404 Media

2026-02-21 14:00:56

At the World’s Largest General Science Meeting, Surviving Trump Is the Topic

Welcome back to the Abstract! This week, we have a very special edition of the newsletter packed with everything I saw and heard at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting, held in Phoenix from February 12 to 14.

Founded in 1848, AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, with over 120,000 members. It operates with the mission of advancing “science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people," according to its website. It’s also the publisher of Science, a leading collection of journals that have graced this newsletter many times.

The overarching theme this year was the damage inflicted on the U.S. science sector by the Trump administration and how to best respond to it. Since Trump returned to office, his team has terminated or frozen 7,800 research grants, laid off 25,000 scientists and personnel from research agencies, and proposed budget cuts of 35 percent to federal science funding, amounting to $32 billion, according to Nature.

It’s an epic own goal for American science leadership that is also reverberating through the global scientific community. But experts at the meeting highlighted the bright spots in the darkness, as the world learns to respond to the new normal.

Excuse the quality of my pictures; I’m untalented as a photographer at the best of times and I also refuse to part with my six-year-old iPhone SE. Without further ado, here are the highlights from the meeting.

The state of state science

State-Level Science Policy: A Conversation with Expert Practitioners

With the U.S. federal science sector in crisis, scientists working at the state, regional, and local levels have a unique opportunity and obligation to fill in the gaps. During one Friday session, two politicians on opposite sides of the aisle shared their thoughts on how to build public trust in science at the local level.

Andrew Zwicker, a Democrat state senatorwho represents about 250,000 people in New Jersey’s 16th Legislative District, said action on local levels is often smoother because the “hyper-partisanship that you read about or maybe have personally experienced in Washington [D.C.] rarely happens in the states.” Zwicker, a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, also expressed hope because his younger constituents are interested in scientific policy, particularly on climate change “because they see it as an existential threat to their own future.”

Roger Hanshaw, a Republican who serves as the speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates, said he represents “the opposite end of that bell curve” as his district (WV-62) contains 17,500 people and does not have “a stoplight, a Walmart, or a McDonald's.” Hanshaw, who has a background in environmental law, advised citizens to remain consistently engaged with their representatives at all times, not just when the issues they care about are a flashpoint in the news.

How screwed are we?

America @250: Redesigning the Scientific Enterprise
Arthur Daemmrich (right) and Mahmud Farooque during their talk. Image by author.
I tuned into a talk by Arthur Daemmrich and Mahmud Farooque, the director and associate director, respectively, of the Arizona State University Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO). They outlined how the United States came to be such a global powerhouse in science, and how that leadership role has been upended by Trump’s threats against academic universities, the massive cuts implemented by DOGE, and the loss of personnel and expertise across the U.S. science sector.

“This is a very concerted attack on these institutions,” Daemmrich said. “This is really a turning point and we’re in a historical transition at present.”

To help come up with solutions, CSPO has launched a new project to engage the public on the future of American science policy, including through a series of one-day public forums this summer that will take place in Arizona, West Virginia, and Massachusetts. After the talk, I asked the pair if they would tailor those forums to address science issues that are specific to the diverse interests of those very different states.

“What we want to do is create national-level baseline data,” Farooque replied. “We do this on one Saturday. In the past, we have done a national and local question that is different. We will take that into the design, but we will see what is possible. That will be another value proposition for the different states to get interested in answering the questions that are relevant to them.”

Daemmrich added that “a lot of our forums begin with a kind of open framing session where people are identifying hopes and concerns for their community before they are getting into the substance of how the U.S. science funding system works, what science has done for your community, or questions about how would you think about allocating science. They have this opportunity to articulate what they see in their community and we collect all that data as well.”

Fighting misinformation in a hostile environment

Rigor and Transparency: Editors-in-Chief on the Role of Scientific Journals

At this session, the editors-in-chief of three major scientific journals discussed their responses to an administration that is hostile to many scientific fields, as well as the challenges of combating the dissemination of bad scientific information on social media or podcasts.

During the Q&A, I asked Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Science, how, and if, scientists and science communicators can compete with celebrity personalities like Joe Rogan, who often air misinformation on their platforms.

“Well, for sure, you don't want me doing it,” Thorp replied. “I'm way too blunt.”

“I believe that the answer probably isn't going to come from science communication the way we think about it,” he said. “I think that the people who can move the meter are the primary care physicians, the emergency room docs, the nurse practitioners, the pharmacists, the social workers, the teachers, and the people who folks have a personal relationship with.”

“That's a lot of burden to put on those folks because they're not the most powerful people in the ecosystem,” he continued. But he said that these on-the-ground practitioners who have direct personal relationships with the public “have a much better chance” to persuade people “than one of us would have going on Joe Rogan.”

Helping corals beat the heat

Rebuilding Coral Resilience Through Cellular Biochemistry and Nanotechnology
Liza M. Roger during her talk. Image by author
Not everything at the meeting revolved around the president. Corals are the foundation of the most biodiverse regions in the oceans, but marine heatwaves—which are intensifying due to human-driven climate change—are already killing off many of these vital reefs worldwide.

I stopped by the Arizona State University (ASU) expo booth to hear a short talk by Liza M. Roger, an assistant professor of molecular sciences at ASU who is developing nanomedicines that could help boost the resilience of reefs. After her talk, I asked her how often these therapies would need to be applied to ensure coral survival.

“It would need to be a combination—like a cocktail of nanomedicine together—and then finding what time you would have to dose the system so that it responds the way that you want it to respond,” she replied. “Most likely, it would be a cyclical thing because the heatwaves are seasonal.”

“It’s a case where you have got to know your environment and when the waters are starting to warm, then you could eventually treat the corals, and wait for the heatwave to pass,” she said. “Then maybe, next summer you have to do it again.”

The fireside chats of prehistory

Cat Hobaiter: Storytelling Apes
Cat Hobaiter during her talk. Image by author.
What separates human language from gestural communication between our closest relatives, the great apes? Catherine Hobaiter, a primatologist at the University of St. Andrews, speculated on the role of fireside storytelling as a driver of our human capacity for complex language and abstract thinking.

She noted that once our early human relatives had mastered controlled fires, they were able to extend their hours late into the dark evenings, perhaps reflecting on the events of the day and anticipating the outcomes of tomorrow. These stories and conversations would necessitate the development of more symbolic concepts and complicated communication.
Hobaiter demonstrating ape gestures during her talk. Image by author.
Hobaiter also shared some amazing videos of ape communication in the wild, including chimpanzees that beat distinct drum patterns on tree trunks with their hands, creating vibrations of which can be heard for more than a mile. During the Q&A, I asked Hobaiter about her team’s process for obtaining these observations of wild apes in various parts of Africa.

“We have really well-established field camps,” she said. “My camp in northern Uganda has houses with beds, and a hot shower—if you like fire under the shower bucket. There are other camps where we go hiking. You drive three days until the road runs out, you hike two more days, and you’re in tents for the next few months.”

“Camera traps are amazing these days,” she added. “We’re starting to use various different computer science AI models to help us handle tens of thousands of camera trap videos. But we’re also really committed to manual coding because one of the things we’ve learned is that you can’t train a model to look for the thing that you don’t know is there. So it’s lots of different ways that are coming together.”

Do look up—with these fancy asteroid missions

Sizing Up the Asteroid Threat
Kelly Fast gives her talk. Image by author.
As if we don’t have enough to worry about here on Earth, there’s always the outside risk that some random rock from space might wallop us into oblivion. At this session, three scientists outlined how experts are working to mitigate the threat of death-by-asteroid while also assuring attendees it is not something that keeps them up at night.

Kelly Fast, the acting planetary defense officer for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, provided an overview of her office’s goal to identify as many potentially hazardous asteroids as possible. In particular, she spotlighted the upcoming mission NEO Surveyor, due for launch no later than 2028, which is designed to spot asteroids over 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter.

Nancy Chabot, the chief scientist of the Space Exploration Sector at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, walked the audience through the results of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a spacecraft that slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, shifting its trajectory.

Last, Daniella DellaGiustina, principal investigator for NASA's OSIRIS-APEX Mission, outlined her team’s plan to send a spacecraft to rendezvous with the asteroid Apophis after it makes a very close approach with Earth in spring 2029.

During the Q&A, I asked the panelists about the popularity of asteroid impacts in science fiction, especially action movies, and whether those depictions are a hindrance or a help in their research and public engagement.

“I think it’s a help,” said Chabot. “The fact that this is something that people relate to, that people are interested in, does make it easier to have that conversation.”

“So it really can be this great gateway and if it comes about from Armageddon, Deep Impact, Don’t Look Up, or whatever your favorite one happens to be—I’ve seen them all multiple times,” she added. “ I think it’s something to lean into, personally.”

“I have obviously watched these films and see a lot of flaws in some of the basic premises,” said DellaGiustina, “but it’s great to use whatever tools we have in our toolbox to engage the public.”

Last, Fast weighed in, saying: “It can be challenging sometimes, engaging on science. I think in a way, we have it easy. We can have fun with it. When we can come out and speak, we can at least redirect to: here’s how it really works, and here’s what we really know.”

Conversations at the Expo

In addition to attending talks and sessions, I also wandered around the expo interviewing people at the booths. Here are my favorite three conversations.

That’s one small step for a dog…

Jeffery Bennett at his booth. Image by author.
Jeffrey Bennett, a Colorado-based astrophysicist and former NASA scientist, is the author of a children’s series about his Rottweiler dog, Max, who travels all around the solar system. His series was the first to be selected by NASA to go to space with astronauts onboard the International Space Station for a literacy program called Story Time From Space. Since 2011, many ISS crew members have filmed themselves reading about Max’s space adventures to encourage kids to get interested in reading, science, and space exploration.

"Hopefully, we start reading books from the Moon,” Bennett told me. ”Kids really get excited about watching these videos. We've had millions of views, most of them probably in classrooms with lots of kids watching all around the world, because it's all free.”

“I think the more that this can be done, the more it gives kids a chance to get engaged with astronauts and with space and with real science.”

A visit to the arXiv…

The arXiv booth. Image by author.
ArXiv, a preprint server owned by Cornell University, is in many ways the connective tissue of the global science community. Given how often I have personally relied on this server as a reporter, I was delighted to see its booth at the expo. I spoke with Steinn Sigurdsson, arXiv’s scientific director, about its mission.

“It delivers a thousand new papers every day and we have an archive of three million papers covering the last, actually, more than 35 years because some people backdated their papers to before arXiv started,” he added.

Sigurdsson said arXiv’s primary purpose “is to get the research circulating early because things happen fast.” The server has been essential in rapidly disseminating news about everything from astronomical discoveries to emerging Covid research early on in the pandemic. Long live arXiv!

Interactive Interactions

Genzer with his colleagues at their booth. Image by author.
The eye-catching Interactions.org booth was decorated with artistic photographs from the Global Physics Photowalk, a recent photo contest that showcased particle physics facilities around the world. Pete Genzer, the co-chair of the Interactions Collaboration, told me that the organization’s mission is to encourage “peaceful promotion of particle physics globally” and “to try to make particle physics, which should be very complicated, more accessible to the public.”
A close-up of the photo contest finalists. Image by author.
“We also do a dark matter day every October,” said Genzer, who also serves as manager of the media and communications office at Brookhaven National Laboratory. “We tie it to Halloween because, you know, dark matter is kind of spooky, and it's a good time. We've been doing that for several years now, and there's a series of events and lectures at these labs all around the world on dark matter, what we're doing to try to figure out what it is, and what place it plays in our universe.”

Vera Rubin is groovin’

Closing Plenary: Robert Blum of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in conversation with astronomer Jennifer Wiseman
Robert Blum’s plenary speech. Image by author.
The conference capped off with a plenary speech from Robert Blum, the director of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a major new telescope that began operating last year. Blum walked the audience through the genesis of the telescope as a literal napkin doodle in the 1990s, to its meticulous construction on a hilltop in the Atacama Desert of Chile, to the exciting moment when it captured its first light in 2025.

He ended his talk with a quote from the telescope’s namesake, Vera C. Rubin (1928-2016), who was the first astronomer to describe dark matter as well as a passionate advocate for the participation of women and other under-represented groups in astronomy. I think it also serves as a fitting end for this newsletter that hopefully provides some inspiration in a time when science is under threat.

“Don't shoot for the stars, we already know what's there,” Rubin said. “Shoot for the space in between because that's where the real mystery lies."

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

NEO Surveyor

NEO Surveyor is the first space telescope specifically designed to hunt asteroids and comets that may be potential hazards to Earth.

^{NASA Science Editorial Team (NASA Science)}

404 Media

2026-02-20 17:38:06

The U.S. Military Is Reviving Microbes from 40,000-Year-Old Ice

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Scientists with the U.S. military have revived microbes frozen in Alaskan permafrost that dates back nearly 40,000 years—leading to the discovery of 26 new species—as part of an effort to pioneer technologies to help the military endure extremely cold environments, according to a new release from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC).

Researchers with ERDC’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) discovered the novel microbes in its Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility in Fox, Alaska. Some of these microbes were frozen into the ice 38,000 years ago, a time when Neanderthals still walked Earth, though the samples contain species from many different eras across tens of thousands of years.

“Microbes are the best chemists,” said Robyn Barbato, senior research microbiologist and leader of CRREL’s soil microbiology team, in a call with 404 Media, noting that the permafrost cores are cold and extremely salty.

“We purposefully thought of permafrost and terrestrial ice as a great habitat to think about ice and to discover ice modulation properties,” she added. “If we can learn what they're doing, how they're doing it, then we can take that as a biotechnology and apply it to real world problems out there.”
Barbato in a Tyvek suit taking cores from the Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility in Fox, Alaska. Image: U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL)
Digging up ancient lifeforms from permafrost is a busy field, with researchers reviving viruses that have been dormant for nearly 50,000 years in some cases, as well as recently discovering millennia-old bacteria that are resistant to many common antibiotics. But why is the U.S. Army interested? Some of the possible military applications of CRREL’s research include the development of frostbite prevention creams for soldiers working in extreme environments, novel antifreeze formulas, and techniques for de-icing vehicles and other equipment. Microbial research could also lead to new methods for creating stable ice so that, for example, vehicles could pass safely over melted or thawed ground.

“For the military, frostbite is a huge, huge problem when you're in extreme weather conditions in the Arctic,” Barbato said, noting that cold conditions can also stop batteries and other items from working. “You want to write with a pen—guess what? Your ink froze. You actually have to write with a pencil.”

“When you think about military operations in the cold, you have to think of all these practical things,” she continued. “To link it back to the microorganisms, they've developed these properties and materials that we can use to advance the opportunity of staying in the cold longer, and not having as many medical emergencies due to frostbite.”

Barbato and her colleagues at CRREL are funded by a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s project called Ice Control for Cold Environments. Their research demonstrates that “permafrost microorganisms have diverse stress responses and survival adaptations relevant to biotechnology,” according to a study the team published last year in the journal Applied and Industrial Microbiology.

“We have a rich history of doing cold regions research,” Barbato said. “We have technical reports that, for the 60 years that we've been around, are still referenced today on how to collect ice cores in the middle of nowhere under freezing conditions. That initial research was just incredible, and is still used today, which is cool. Pun intended.”

Barbato noted that while her team develops technologies for the military, the discoveries are also applicable to civil spheres. In addition to practical technologies such as de-icing or frostbite prevention, these projects are uncovering novel proteins that may lead to biomedical breakthroughs.

“We're looking at it from a range of biotechnology applications,” Barbato said. “Specific to the DARPA work is we're now down-selecting 50 of those bacteria and seeing the top performers, and then starting to apply the technology for military use.”

The samples that the team collects contain spores that may have been frozen in stasis for as long as the ice itself, meaning they date back tens of thousands of years. But some of the younger bacteria in the permafrost has managed to remain metabolically active, reproducing slowly over thousands of years, and even consuming other bacteria in the environment.

These samples are carefully transported back to the CRREL’s soil microbiology laboratory in Hanover, New Hampshire, where they are revived, cultured, and added to CRREL’s Innovative, Collaborative, Exploratory Cold Regions Organism Library for Discovery in Biotechnology (ICE COLD) library.

“In permafrost, there's about ten million cells of bacteria in one gram, so there's a tremendous biodiversity that has been frozen in time,” Barbato concluded.

5,000-Year-Old Bacteria Strain Found in Ice Cave Resistant to 10 Common Antibiotics

The discovery of an antibiotic-resistant microbe locked in Romanian cave ice highlights both the risks of a warming world and an unexpected source of future medicines.

^{Jenny Lehmann (Discover Magazine)}

404 Media

2026-02-14 14:00:58

Astronomers Create Strange ‘Vortex Crystals’ from Space in the Lab

Welcome back to the Abstract! These are the studies this week that kept it reel, fertilized the land, established Martian law, and cooked up an extraterrestrial tempest in a teapot.

First, ever wondered how cities are represented in Soviet propaganda? Look no further. Then: the path to civilization runs through the bums of birds, what the first Martian settlers could learn from unions, and VORTEX CRYSTALS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Before we get started, I wanted to give a little heads-up that I’m currently attending the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) annual meeting in Phoenix, which is a gathering of people who think science is good and should ideally get better. I think it will be especially interesting this year given the ongoing damage that the Trump administration is inflicting on the science sector in the United States, a trend with global implications.

Next Saturday, we will run a special edition of the Abstract with pictures, interviews, and some of my other takeaways from the meeting. Have a great week until then!

As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.

Soviet Propaganda: A City Guide

Tamm, Mikhail et al. “City representation in Soviet propaganda and geographical biases in cultural data.” Nature Cities.

Certain cities loom large in our collective imagination, not only as distinct skylines but as symbols of specific ideals and values. A fascinating new study explores this idea through the lens of Soviet propaganda by analyzing which major cities show up the most, and least, in popular ‘Novosti Dnya’ (News of the day) newsreels from 1954 to 1986.

“Cultural representations typically contain illuminating biases,” said researchers led by Mikhail V. Tamm of Tallinn University in Estonia. “For example, geographical locations are unequally portrayed in media, creating a distorted representation of the world. Identifying and measuring such biases is crucial to understanding both the data and the socio-cultural processes behind them.”

“Newsreels—short news films shown in cinemas before the evening’s feature film—were influential means of depicting the world for the cinema-goers in the twentieth century, visualizing events, individuals and places that the spectators could read about in the newspapers,” the team continued. “Throughout almost all history of the Soviet Union, the production system and censorship made sure that newsreels reflected the policies of the leadership.”

In other words, these newsreels were designed to communicate the innate “social, economic, political and cultural superiority of the communist system,” according to the study. It’s perhaps no surprise that the Soviet Union’s two most iconic cities—the modern capital Moscow and the past capital St. Petersburg—were disproportionately represented based on a population analysis.

Moscow was visually displayed or mentioned 2,831 times in the team’s newsreel sample, while St. Petersburg trailed at a distance with 339 mentions. These heavy-hitters were followed by Kyiv (95), Riga (73), Minsk (72), and Volgograd (62). Meanwhile, the most-commonly displayed foreign cities (from a Soviet perspective) were led by satellite state capitals Warsaw (64), Berlin (62), and Prague (51), followed by Paris (39), New York City (29), and Tokyo (16).

“Contrary to the messaging of the official Soviet ideology, which emphasized equality of nations and anticolonial movement, the silently sold Soviet worldview is heavily centered on Europe being in the role of a privileged or hierarchically higher ‘Other,’ Tamm and his colleagues noted.

“We found that this profound East–West asymmetry is surprisingly underreported in the post-colonial studies of the USSR.”

The team also found overrepresentation in cities with major construction projects, such as the Siberian cities Bratsk and Krasnoyarsk, while other “heartland” regions like the Donbas in Ukraine and Rostov oblast in Russia were given short shrift because they lacked “clear ideological importance beyond their industrial role.”

“Finally, in some cases places are overmentioned seemingly just because it is convenient (close to Moscow) or pleasant (Baltic and Black Sea coasts) to film there,” the team concluded.

Anyway, what a cool and random topic to study. While it is niche, the study offers an opportunity to reflect on the thousands of visual messages we absorb every day and the larger portrait they paint.

In other news…

You’re guano want to read this study

Bongers, Jacob L. et al. “Seabirds shaped the expansion of pre-Inca society in Peru.” PLOS One.

Seabird excrement is a cheat code to civilization, according to a new study that directly linked the guano trade to flourishing empires of Peru’s Chincha Valley.

“Recent research suggests that guano fertilization may have begun by at least 1000 CE in Tarapacá, northern Chile, yet the origins and regional importance of this fertilizer are poorly understood,” said researchers led by Jacob L. Bongers of the University of Sydney. “Using archaeological, historical, and isotopic data from the Chincha Valley, Peru, we ask: to what extent did seabird guano shape the development of pre-Hispanic societies in the Andes?”

Answer: A lot. Guano, which is sometimes called “white gold” because it is so valuable as a fertilizer, was essential to ensuring an abundance of crops like maize, making it “a potentially widespread driving force of social change among pre-Hispanic societies.”
The primary guano-producing bird species (left to right) – the Peruvian booby (Sula variegata), the Peruvian pelican (Pelecanus thagus), and the Guanay cormorant (Leucocarbo bougainvilliorum). Image: Diego H. (left and right) and Claude Kolwelter (center), iNaturalist.org. Licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
“Our multidisciplinary dataset provides strong support for pre-Inca seabird guano fertilization, an effective agricultural practice for boosting crop production that is more commonly associated with industrial societies,” the team concluded. In short, it’s good shit.

In addition to these Inca precursors, the researchers noted that the Inca also prized guano, outlawing the killing of guano birds “under penalty of death.” As the saying goes, an eye for a bird bum.

You’ve reached Mars, please hold

Ferguson, Alexander H. Ferdinand and Haqq-Misra, Jacob. “Cooperative sovereignty on Mars: Lessons from the International Telecommunication Union and Universal Postal Union.” Acta Astronautica.

After years of hyping Mars, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk pivoted away from the red planet this week because it is “much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city.” But the dream of human settlements on Mars lives on in a new study that uses, of all things, the International Telecommunication Union and the Universal Postal Union as case studies for our Martian future.

“We proceed from the assumption that future Martian settlers, whether national or corporate, will be primarily driven by self-interest, competition, and a desire for strategic or economic advantage,” said authors Alexander H. Ferdinand Ferguson and Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. “We do not assume an inherent desire for equitable sharing.”

“However, we argue that the Martian environment itself imposes a unique and brutal logic that compels cooperation on a foundational technical level,” they added. “On Earth, non-cooperation on technical standards typically leads to inefficiency; on Mars, it can lead to catastrophic, mission-ending failure.”

The study goes on to point to the two expansive unions as “powerful historical precedents” for establishing clear standards between independent actors that are operating without a central territorial government which they say is “one of the challenges Mars settlements will face.”

Who knows if the rubber will ever meet the regolith on these ideas, but I’m personally more comfortable looking to international telecom and postal unions for guidance on governance than space billionaires.

Behold the Jovian vortex crystals

Benzeggouta, Djihane et al. “A laboratory model for Jovian polar vortex crystals.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

This week in science from the enchanted spellbook, astronomers have concocted miniature vortex crystals from outer space right here on Earth. Though they sound like hex ingredients, these crystals are actually enormous cyclonic storms that rage at Jupiter’s poles, which cluster together into intricate patterns of equilateral triangles, inspiring the distinctive name.

Now, scientists led by Djihane Benzeggouta of Aix Marseille University have “experimentally reproduced long-lived vortex crystals like those at Jupiter’s poles” in fluid tanks with a mix of fresh and saltwater, according to the new work.
An explanation of the experiment and observations of its vortex crystals. Image: Benzeggouta, Djihane et al.
“We present an experimental model in which three similar cyclonic vortices are released into the upper layer of a rotating, two-layer stratified fluid system with a free upper surface, and spontaneously organize into a stable, long-lived vortex crystal,” the team said. “Long-lived” in this case means that the crystals persisted for hundreds of rotations, translating to several minutes.

“Achieving the spontaneous emergence of vortices and crystals from background turbulence remains the ultimate goal,” the researchers concluded.

And on some basic level, isn’t the emergence of crystals from background turbulence the ultimate goal for us all?

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

First Contact

A narrative and visual exploration of humanity’s age-old search for and fixation with extraterrestrials.First Contact explores the ancient idea—and epic ...

^{Hachette Book Group}

404 Media

2026-02-11 16:42:11

A Mystery Inside Earth’s Core Has Finally Been Solved With a Mind-Boggling Discovery

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

For decades, scientists have puzzled over the “density deficit” in Earth’s core, an unexplained discrepancy between the expected density of a solid iron core and the much lower density that is actually observed through seismic measurements of our planet’s center.

Now, scientists have provided some of the best experimental evidence yet that this deficit can be explained by vast oceans of hydrogen that are locked within the core, significantly lowering its overall density, according to a study published on Tuesday in Nature Communications.

In addition to constraining this longstanding problem, the research reveals new insights about another persistent mystery: the original source of Earth’s liquid water, the key ingredient that enabled life on our planet to emerge.

“Hydrogen has long been considered a major light-element candidate to account for the observed density deficit in Earth’s core,” said researchers led by Dongyang Huang, an assistant professor of Earth and space sciences at Peking University, in the new study. “For decades, however, our knowledge of the exact content of H in planetary cores has been hindered by the inability to unambiguously quantify H in high-pressure samples.”

To solve this problem, the researchers performed a series of experiments that simulated the extreme environment in the core during Earth’s formation billions of years ago. This approach involved heating up iron metal with lasers to a fully-molten state that resembles ancient Earth’s inner magma ocean, which reached temperatures up to 8,700°F, and pressures more than a million times more intense than those we experience on Earth’s surface.

The team then searched for the presence of hydrogen in nanostructures made primarily of silicon and oxygen. The results revealed that the core’s hydrogen percentage sits between 0.07 to 0.36 percent, which works out to roughly nine-to-45 times the amount of the hydrogen in all of Earth’s oceans.

But perhaps the most tantalizing part of the study is its implications for understanding the enigmatic origins of Earth’s water, the wellspring of life on our world.

Some theories suggest that Earth’s water was primarily delivered from extraterrestrial sources, such as comets and asteroids that impacted our planet as it was forming more than four billion years ago. An alternate possibility is that Earth’s water was largely sourced from its building blocks, including vast interior reservoirs of hydrogen. This latter scenario is supported by the new study.

“Although 71 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, mainly made of H, it has been argued that the majority of Earth’s H had been stored in the core since its formation, ~4.5 billion years ago,” the researchers said.

The estimates presented in the study “require the Earth to obtain the majority of its water from the main stages of terrestrial accretion, instead of through comets during late addition,” the team concluded.

The study certainly helps tackle the mystery of the precise contents of Earth’s core, though the authors note that their estimate has large uncertainties that will need to be further narrowed down in future work. They also suggest that hydrogen alone cannot explain the density deficit, and that other light elements or compounds, including water, might be contributing to the discrepancy.

“Compared to existing models for Earth’s core composition this is a somewhat less H-rich core, and requires its density deficit to be accounted for by a mixture of light elements, rather than a single light species, akin to that of Mars’ core,” the team said in the study.

Given that water is essential to all life on Earth, solving the riddle of its origins is the first step to understanding how our planet came to be inhabited, and whether other planets may commonly go through the same process.

Experimental quantification of hydrogen content in the Earth’s core - Nature Communications

Earth’s core is arguably the largest reservoir of hydrogen (H) on the planet. Experiments show that H sequestration is coupled with those of Si and O, enabling the core to store the equivalent of dozens of Earth’s oceans.

^Nature

404 Media

2026-01-26 22:13:10

Dozens of CDC Health Databases Have Gone Dark Under Trump: ‘The Consequences Will Be Dire’

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

Researchers are raising alarms over “unexplained pauses” that have interrupted dozens of U.S. federal health surveillance databases covering vaccinations and overdose deaths during the second Trump administration. The breakdown is creating critical gaps in public health according to a study published on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

During 2025, nearly half (46 percent) of 82 routinely-updated databases managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experienced delays or total cessations of new data, an interdisciplinary team reports in their new audit. The majority (87 percent) of the affected databases monitor vaccination-related topics, and most experienced data blackouts for a period of more than six months as of late October 2025.

“Such long pauses may have compromised evidence for decision making and policies by clinicians, administrators, professional organizations, and policymakers,” wrote the researchers led by Jeremy W. Jacobs, an assistant professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“Without current data on disease burden, vaccination coverage, behavioral health indicators, and demographic disparities, clinicians cannot identify emerging threats or focus on meeting the needs of specific populations,” the team continued. “Without safeguards, unexplained pauses in surveillance undermine evidence-based medicine and erode public trust at a time when both are critically needed.”

The affected CDC databases collect surveillance information from hospitals, research centers, and other sources to monitor dangerous situations—like infectious disease outbreaks or upticks in drug overdoses—and provide real-time aid and guidance to assist local health authorities. As of December 2025, only one of the paused databases identified in the October survey had been updated.

Over the course of the past year, the team wrote, federal health databases have seen "unprecedented removal and undocumented alteration.” They speculated that the interruptions are related to the Trump administration’s major cuts to federal staff and budgets across the U.S. government, including at the CDC and the National Institute of Health, which likely played a role in disrupting data collection and updates to technical infrastructure.

The disproportionate impact on vaccination-related databases also reflect the priorities of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary, who has spread misinformation about vaccines, reduced the childhood vaccine schedule, and fired leading scientific advisors and CDC officials who have pushed back on his views.

“Vaccination tracking is particularly vulnerable because it requires ongoing coordination across federal, state, and health care system data sources,” the researchers said. “Vaccination surveillance identifies groups with greater challenges to access and equity by stratifying by age, race and ethnicity, geographic jurisdiction, and insurance coverage. The ability to address these disparities has been compromised precisely when such information is most needed to counter misinformation and target outreach.”

In an editorial published alongside the study, Jeanne Marrazzo, a physician and CEO of the Infectious Disease Society of America, called the new study “damning” and said it exposed “tampering with evidence” and “selective silencing." She warns that the loss of updated data in these systems could lead to “dire” consequences, including delayed responses to disease outbreaks, and a loss of public trust in federal health institutions.

“The administration’s antivaccine stance has interrupted the reliable flow of the data we need to keep Americans safe from preventable infections,” said Marrazzo, who was not an author of the study.

“The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, who has stated baldly that the CDC failed to protect Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, is now enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy,” she warned. “The CDC as it currently exists is no longer the stalwart, reliable source of public health data that for decades has set the global bar for rigorous public health practice.”

🌘
Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.

404 Media

^{404 Media}

404 Media

2026-01-24 14:00:33

Scientists Discovered a Cow That Uses Tools Like a Chimpanzee

Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that scratched the sweet spot, extended a hand, went over the hill, and ended up on Mercury.

First, a clever cow single-hoofedly upends assumptions about bovine intelligence. Next, we’ve got the oldest rock art ever discovered, the graying of modern zoos, and the delightfully named phenomena of bursty bulk flows.

As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.

Cows use tools? You herd it here first

Osuna-Mascaró, Antonio J. et al. “Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow.” Current Biology.

Veronika, a Swiss brown cow that lives in a rural mountain village in Austria, is the first cow to demonstrate tool use. How udderly amoosing!

Veronkia’s owner Witgar Wiegele, who keeps her as a pet companion, noticed years ago that she likes to pick up sticks with her mouth in order to reach hard-to-scratch places on her body.

The hills were soon alive with word of Veronika’s tool-using prowess, attracting the attention of researchers Antonio Osuna-Mascaró and Alice Auersperg of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.

Tool use is a sign of advanced cognition that has been observed in many animals, including primates, orcas, and birds. But cows, with their vacant expressions and docile nature, have been overlooked as likely tool users, except as a joke in Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons.

In their new study, Osuna-Mascaró and Auersperg presented Veronika with a deck brush, which she proceeded to use as a scratching tool in a variety of configurations.
youtube.com/embed/bAk4PFEuWKQ?…
“We hypothesized that she would target difficult-to-reach body regions and use the more effective brushed end over the stick end,” the researchers said. “Veronika’s behavior went beyond these predictions, however, showing versatility, anticipation, and fine motor targeting.”

“Unexpectedly and revealingly, Veronika’s tool-end use depended strongly on body region: she predominantly used the brush end for upper-body scratching and the stick end for lower areas, such as the udder and belly skin flaps,” they added. “Importantly, the differential use of both broom ends constitutes the use of a multipurpose tool, exploiting distinct properties of a single object for different functions. Comparable behavior has only been consistently documented in chimpanzees.”

I recommend reading the study in full, as it is not very long and contains ample video footage demonstrating Veronika’s mastery of the deck brush. The authors seem genuinely enraptured by her talents and, frankly, it’s hard to blame them for milking the discovery. Overall, the findings serves as a reminder not to cowtow to stereotypes of braindead bovines, a point made by the study’s bullish conclusion:

“Despite millennia of domestication for productivity, livestock have been almost entirely excluded from discussions of animal intelligence,” Osuna-Mascaró and Auersperg said. “Veronika’s case challenges this neglect, revealing that technical problem-solving is not confined to large-brained species with manipulative hands or beaks.”

“She did not fashion tools like the cow in Gary Larson’s cartoon, but she selected, adjusted, and used one with notable dexterity and flexibility,” they concluded. “Perhaps the real absurdity lies not in imagining a tool-using cow, but in assuming such a thing could never exist.”

Now that’s something to ruminate on.

In other news…

Hands of ancients

Oktaviana, A.A., Joannes-Boyau, R., Hakim, B. et al. “Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi.” Nature.

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known rock art, which are very faint hand stencils made by humans 68,000 years ago on a cave wall on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

For comparison, the next oldest rock art, located in Spain and attributed to Neanderthals, is roughly 66,000 years old. The newly-dated hand stencils were made by a mysterious group of people who eventually migrated across the lost landmass of Sahul, which is now submerged, and reached Australia.

The find supports a “growing view that Sulawesi was host to a vibrant and longstanding artistic culture,” said researchers co-led by Adhi Agus Oktaviana and Budianto Hakim of Indonesia's National Agency for Research and Innovation, and Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University.

“The presence of this extremely old art in Sulawesi suggests that the initial peopling of Sahul about 65,000 years involved maritime journeys between Borneo and Papua, a region that remains poorly explored from an archaeological perspective,” the team added.

Though the stencils are extremely faint and obscured by younger paintings, it’s still eerie to see the contours of human hands from a long-lost era when dire wolves and Siberian unicorns still roamed our world.

Zoo animals get long in the tooth

Meireles, João Pedro et al. “Aging populations threaten conservation goals of zoos.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Speaking of really old stuff, there has been much consternation of late about falling birth rates and aging populations in many nations around the world. As it turns out, similar demographic anxieties are playing out in zoos across Europe and North America, where mammal populations “have, on average, become older and less reproductively active” according to a new study.

On the one hand, this is good news because it signals improvements in the health and longevity of mammals in zoos, reflecting a long-term effort to transform zoos into conservation hubs as opposed to sites of spectacle. But it also “fundamentally jeopardizes the long-term capacity of zoos to harbor insurance populations, facilitate reintroductions of threatened species, and simply maintain a variety of self-sustaining species programs,” said researchers led by João Pedro Meireles of the University of Zurich.

This story struck me because of my many childhood visits to see an Asian elephant named Lucy, who was the star of the Edmonton Valley Zoo when I was young (I am now old). I recently learned Lucy is still chilling there at the ripe old age of 50! This is positively Methuselan for a zoo elephant, though it is not an unusual age for them in the wild. Lucy is the perfect poster child (or rather, poster senior) for this broader aging effect. Long may she reign.

Bust out the bursty bulk flow

Williamson, Hayley N. et al. “BepiColombo at Mercury: Three Flybys, Three Magnetospheres.” Geophysical Research Letters.

We’ll close with a reminder that the planet Mercury exists.

It can be easy to overlook this tiny rock, which is barely bigger than the Moon. But Mercury is dynamic and full of surprises, according to a study based on close flybys of the planet by BepiColombo, a collaborative space mission between Europe and Japan, which is tasked with cracking this mercurial nut.

BepiColombo zoomed just over 100 miles above Mercury’s surface in October 2021, June 2022, and June 2023, but each encounter revealed distinct portraits of the planet’s magnetosphere, which is a magnetic bubble that surrounds some planets, including Earth.

“These flybys all passed from dusk to dawn through the nightside equatorial region but were noticeably different from each other,” said researchers led by Hayley N. Williamson of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics. “Specifically, we see energetic ions in the second and third flybys that are not there in the first.”

“We conclude that these ions are part of a phenomenon called bursty bulk flow, which also happens at Earth,” the team concluded. Bursty bulk flow, in addition to being a fun phrase to say outloud, are intense, transient jets in a magnetosphere that drive energetic particles toward the planet, and are driven by solar activity.

BepiColombo is on track to scooch into orbit around Mercury this November, where it will continue to study the planet up close for years, illuminating this world of extremes. In my hierarchy of Mercurys, the planet sits above the Ford brand, the 80th element, and the Roman god, with only Freddie surpassing it. So, it’s good to see it getting the attention it deserves.

Thanks for reading! See you next week.

First Contact

A narrative and visual exploration of humanity’s age-old search for and fixation with extraterrestrials.First Contact explores the ancient idea—and epic ...

^{Hachette Book Group}