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Oldest human brain cells grown in lab 'recorded passage of time'
Peppercorn-sized clumps of human brain cells grown in a lab for a record seven years aged similarly to those inside our heads, suggesting they "recorded the passage of time," scientists said Wednesday.
These tiny clumps, called organoids, are grown from stem cells by scientists around the world in the hope of uncovering the mysteries of our brains—and to test new medicines without having to use animals such as mice.
Normally, these organoids live for a few months, meaning they can offer only a window into the earliest stages of human brains, which take nearly 20 years to fully develop.
So a U.S.-led team of researchers grew some for around seven years, making them the "oldest ever," Paola Arlotta, the senior author of a new study describing the experiment, told AFP.
They discovered that the brain organoids continued to change and mature over the years, despite never having been inside an embryo, let alone a body.
"The brain can continue to develop outside the context of a person for this unprecedented amount of time," explained Arlotta, a Harvard University professor.
The scientists hope this will help shed light on how a range of disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia, first emerge and then progress later in life.
The study, published in the journal Nature, said the organoids "recorded the passage of time and retain a memory of the developmental steps already performed."
This does not mean organoids have memories like we tend to think of them—such as recalling something from childhood—but simply that their past is "engraved" on a cellular level, Arlotta emphasized.
Organoids are "biological models" or "avatars" for human brain cells that are far less complex and do not receive sensory input, she added.
Scientists widely agree that organoids are not capable of consciousness or other higher-order brain functions.
Experiment 'warped time'
The researchers analyzed their aging organoids with three different kinds of recently developed genetic "clocks" that can roughly determine the biological age of cells.
They all showed that the organoids changed over time in similar ways to normal brain cells.
To further confirm their theory, the scientists carried out what Arlotta described as a "crazy experiment."
They mixed cells that had been developing for a year with others that were only two weeks old, creating a "chimera."
The young cells behaved normally.
But the older cells "jumped ahead a whole chunk of development" and started making neurons that normally take around four months, Arlotta said.
This effectively "warped time" for brain development, which was "super cool," she added.
In the future, it could be possible to use this technique to rapidly speed up the development of certain brain cells, Arlotta speculated.
Perspective is everything. 🌍 Gazing down at Earth from above offers an incredibly profound one, as does looking back at the Space Station from a window in the Russian segment. Our crewmate Anna Kikina captured this incredible footage during Anil Menon and my spacewalk on Aug. 6. Even suited up in our bulky spacesuits, we look like tiny little worker bees at the hive given the massive scale of the station.
Bepi Colombo is approaching Mercury 🛰️🌑☀️ And we’re here for it! 🙌
On 3 September, the European Space Agency / JAXA en mission will carry out its first arrival manoeuvre, kicking off the Mercury Arrival Phase.
Want to watch live on 3 Sept?
Stay tuned here and on ESA Science for more details on 27 August 🗓️
'Poop pills' may ease insomnia by reprogramming the gut microbiome, early study hints
A poop transplant — otherwise known as a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) — may help adults with long-term insomnia sleep better, a small study suggests.
After the transplant, study participants' gut bacteria became more diverse than an untreated group of people with insomnia. Their sleep efficiency, meaning the percentage of time they spent asleep while in bed, also increased, researchers reported July 22 in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
If future studies confirm that FMT is safe and effective for the treatment of insomnia, it could become another tool against the sleep disorder, joining sleeping pills and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
How can AI help identify pain when animals can't tell us they're suffering?.
A new AI framework, known as SHIC-XE, has been developed to detect signs of pain in horses from video analysis while providing stable, anatomically consistent explanations for its decisions. The framework was developed by an international team of researchers led by Dr. Marcelo Feighelstein, head of the Artificial Intelligence Systems Engineering Program at Tel-Hai University's new Cluster of Engineering and Advanced Computing.
For the first time, these AI-generated explanations can be quantitatively compared with expert assessments, representing a significant breakthrough in the field of explainable artificial intelligence and an important step toward AI systems that can be trusted in real-world clinical and health care environments.
The study, published in the International Journal of Computer Vision, addresses a longstanding challenge in both veterinary and human medicine: how to identify pain and distress in individuals who cannot communicate what they are experiencing.
Building a bridge between humans and animals
Animals cannot express pain in words, and even experienced veterinarians and caregivers can struggle to recognize signs of suffering. Feighelstein's research aims to bridge that communication gap by using artificial intelligence to interpret facial expressions, body language and movement patterns. Over the years, his team and collaborators have developed AI-based tools capable of recognizing pain and emotions in cats, dogs, rabbits, sheep, cattle and now horses.
"My motivation is to build a bridge between humans and animals," said Feighelstein. "We want to give a technological voice to those who have no words, allowing caregivers and professionals to better understand their condition, their emotions and their suffering."
A major challenge in AI-based video analysis is explainability. Existing methods often highlight different areas of an image from one video frame to the next, creating unstable and difficult-to-interpret explanations. To overcome this limitation, the researchers developed SHIC-XE, a novel framework that projects the model's attention onto a fixed three-dimensional representation of a horse's face. The result is a consistent anatomical explanation, even when the horse moves, changes its head position or is filmed from different angles.
Explainer: What is ADHD?
School was difficult for Makayla Caliendo when she was young. She remembers staring out the window while her classmates were paying attention in class. Some clothes, tags and socks were uncomfortable and left her unable to focus. She even had to repeat preschool.
“I left those early school years with less knowledge than my peers,” Caliendo wrote as a high-school senior in Attention magazine. That was back in 2021. Those experiences had “made me feel dumb.”
Scientists Say: Neurodivergent
But Caliendo wasn’t — and isn’t — dumb. Her brain just works differently than most of her peers.
Caliendo has a condition known as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. It affects how people think, learn and process information. Although sometimes called a “disorder,” ADHD is actually a neurotype. That means it’s a natural — and fairly common — variation in how the brain develops.
Some 22 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with ADHD. This includes more than 6 million children.
People with ADHD produce a lower amount of some of the chemicals that brain cells use to communicate. One is dopamine. It affects motivation and mood. Another is norepinephrine (Nor-ep-ih-NEF-rin). It plays a role in attention and excitement.
Explainer: What is dopamine?
These brain differences can make it harder for people with ADHD to focus on certain tasks when compared to folks without ADHD. People with ADHD may have trouble sitting still or controlling their emotions and actions.
Such traits are not always a problem, notes Jamal Williams at the University of Buffalo in New York. He studies the genetics behind ADHD. People have had traits linked to ADHD for a very long time. Recent research suggests ADHD-like behaviors, such as risk-taking and impulsivity, would have made people better foragers in ancient hunter-gatherer societies.
However, people today are expected to sit still in classes and offices. They may have to be quiet for hours at a time. This can make it difficult for people with ADHD to succeed in such environments.
Spotted: Falcon 9 [2nd stage] impact siteSource: @NASASolarSystem
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on Aug. 5, 2026, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the lunar surface. go.nasa.gov/4zw1I1g
Immune cells have a 'sense of touch,' scientists discover
Scientists have long believed that tissue-resident memory T cells—which remain in tissues after an infection has cleared and respond rapidly if the threat returns—are shaped primarily by biochemical signals. A McGill University–led study has now uncovered a previously unknown ability of T cells that could change our understanding of how long-term immunity develops.
The new findings, published in Nature Immunology, reveal that T cells can sense the stiffness of the tissues around them and use these cues to help determine whether they become long-lived memory cells. Researchers suggest adapting to the greater mechanical forces found in tissues may be necessary for memory T cells to survive long term.
"This is an exciting fundamental finding that challenges the way we think about immune cells," said lead author Judith Mandl, professor in McGill's Department of Physiology. "It suggests T cells can 'feel' their surroundings and adapt to them, making the physical environment an active force in shaping their behavior."
New avenues for research
The discovery could eventually inform new approaches to treating autoimmune diseases, allergies and transplant rejection, where T cells can mistakenly attack healthy tissue.
The findings may also have implications for cancer research, the authors note.
"Tumors are often dense and physically difficult for immune cells to penetrate. Understanding how T cells adapt to these environments could help researchers design cancer immunotherapies that are better able to reach and attack tumors," said Mandl.
Big Tech Wants to Harvest Your Thoughts
Over the past two decades, researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which tracks the iron in the hemoglobin supplying oxygen to neurons, have been building up increasingly detailed maps and inventories of the mammalian cortex. Thanks to huge advances in machine-learning artificial intelligence—computer algorithms that are able to sort through enormous amounts of information and use statistical methods to make classifications and predictions—fMRI scans can now be used to identify everything from depressive thoughts to the nuanced feelings of envy and schadenfreude. Other algorithms have been able to accurately piece together reconstructions of movie clips watched by subjects, just by analyzing their brain scans; or have detected, in probing the brain activity of swing voters in the US presidential election, responding to photographs and videos of presidential candidates, which candidates provoked anxiety or even disgust, and which elicited positive responses or feelings of empathy
In just the last few years, neuroscience researchers have progressed from decoding images and emotions as they play across the cortex to sounds, words, phrases, and even language. In 2023, in a remarkable demonstration of this emerging technology, a woman called Ann Johnson, who had been paralyzed for 18 years by a brain-stem stroke, was able to speak again through the insertion of a grid of 253 electrodes onto the surface of her brain, which translated her neuronal signals into sentences, in real time, at a rate of 78 words per minute (just about half the speed of standard conversation). The research team at the University of California, led by neurosurgeon Edward Chang, had combined this brain-computer interface with an animated avatar of Johnson’s head, which spoke in her own voice, as reconstructed from a recording of a 15-minute toast she had given at her wedding. Just as the avatar’s mouth spoke Johnson’s words as she thought them, so its expressions were similarly influenced by the nuances of her brain activity, which turned her thoughts about facial gestures into displays of emotion—from smiles to pursed lips and frowns...
Tiny satellite will use the dark side of the moon to eavesdrop on whispers from the early universe
A tiny UK-developed satellite, roughly the size of a small carry-on suitcase, could help answer one of the biggest questions in cosmology: What happened during the roughly 150 million years of the cosmic dark ages, before the universe's first stars appeared?
An international team of scientists led by the University of Cambridge will use the far side of the moon as a "shield" so the satellite—called CosmoCube—can block out all the noise from Earth and listen for a faint whisper from the very early universe.
This whisper, known as the 21-centimeter line, is a signal emitted by hydrogen atoms in the period between the afterglow of the Big Bang and cosmic dawn, when nuclear fusion lit up the first stars. No one has directly observed this era before.
Detecting this signal from more than 13.5 billion years ago is extremely difficult with Earth-based telescopes because Earth's ionosphere blocks the right frequencies, and interference from FM radio, satellites and telecommunications drowns it out.
However, the moon provides a natural shield. As CosmoCube orbits the far side of the moon, it will be shielded from all the noise from Earth for roughly 40 minutes of each 2-hour orbit. Over an expected 2-year mission, it will build up 1,000 hours of data on one of the last unexplored periods of the universe, helping us understand how the universe transitioned from dark and nearly empty to the complexity we see today.
Memory may not work how we thought, study of mice in artificial hibernation finds
Long-term memories may not "stick" in the brain for the reasons we thought, a study of mice in artificial hibernation reveals.
Instead of relying on many individual, strong links between neurons — which would typically be pared down during hibernation — long-lasting memories seem to require higher-level patterns in connectivity, the study found.
"This topological architecture of the broader network seems to be more important" than individual, sturdy connections, said study co-author Kazumasa Tanaka, head of the Memory Research Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
The findings, published Thursday (Aug. 13) in the journal Science, may complicate the picture of how memory retention works.
Tanaka and colleagues used hibernation to study memory because past studies of hibernating animals have found that their brains shrink and pare down cell-to-cell connections during these extended periods of low metabolic activity. At the same time, the brain's activity slows to a crawl, and the loss of connections is thought to be related to this energy-saving mechanism.
Despite this brain shrinkage, hibernating animals, such as alpine marmots (Marmota marmota) and European ground squirrels (Spermophilus citellus), still retain memories they formed before they went into hibernation. "Some studies report their memories are intact, even after, so they can remember conspecifics [members of the same species], like their friends, or they can remember the locations of their food," Tanaka told Live Science.
The new study aimed to tackle the question of what allows those memories to stick around even after many connections between brain cells disappear.
Solar eclipse as seen from space!
From its vantage point in space, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager satellite (MTG-I1) captured the Moon’s dark shadow as it passed over Earth’s surface – converging with the advancing twilight shadow as dusk fell over Europe.
esa.int/ESA_Multimedia…
ESA's broadcast has gone live
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China finds first strong evidence of mysterious new matter glueball
In a global first, researchers at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in China have found experimental evidence to confirm the presence of a glueball, a new form of matter. The research findings were made at the Beijing Spectrometer III (BESIII) experiment, as part of an international collaboration headed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The Standard Model of physics states that the building blocks of our universe, atoms, are made up of matter particles and force carriers. Matter particles, or fermions, named quarks, build up protons and neutrons, the positively and neutrally charged particles inside the atomic nucleus. A force carrier holds the quarks together; this carrier is called a gluon.
Physicists have long held that gluons can also attract each other and bind together to form a glueball, an entirely new form of matter that is composed only of a force carrier. For the past five decades, multiple experiments have been carried out to prove the existence of a glueball. However, it was only in 2011 that scientists in China spotted a potential glueball candidate in the experiments conducted at the Beijing Spectrometer III (BES III).
...
Why is it important?
More recently, the researchers also found many new decay modes of X(2370) while also determining its ‘flavor-singlet’ nature, where they lack quark flavor signatures. This is the most important and defining characteristic of a glueball and establishes a complete chain of experimental evidence for a pseudoscalar glueball.
This confirms the theoretical prediction that gluons can bind to each other and form an entirely new kind of matter. The discovery is also a direct test of the non-Abelian gauge structure in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), which also states that gluons are capable of attracting and binding each other, without the involvement of quarks.
This is important, since it also helps establish that QCD is a correct theory and it has been validated at low energies. As the clearest experiment in over 50 years to have found the evidence for glueballs, the finding also demonstrates the importance of the BEPC II in studies of strong interactions.
Dodos probably weren't as stupid as historians made them out to be: new research
The dodo has been extinct for more than 300 years, wiped out within decades of humans arriving on its home island of Mauritius, but it lives on in the public imagination.Source: Phys.org
This famous flightless bird has become a symbol of extinction. Its demise is often portrayed as almost inevitable: a supposedly foolish creature that naïvely approached the sailors who killed it.
Early accounts even describe people holding a captured dodo and letting it cry out so others would wander over. In the 18th century, Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus dubbed the species Dodus ineptus after its reputation for dim wits and silliness.
But new research shows this image is misleading. The dodo was likely no less intelligent than any modern bird. It may also have possessed a rare and overlooked ecological trait: an adaptation to life in low light.
A closer look inside a vanished bird's head
With a team of collaborators across Canada, Australia, the United States, Europe and the UK, our new study looked in detail at the reconstruction of the dodo's brain.
There are only three completely preserved dodo skulls in existence. Using high-resolution CT scans of all three, we could reconstruct the shape of the dodo skull and get a detailed idea of the size and shape of its brain.
This also allowed us to digitally measure the structures associated with vision, smell and cognition (or "smarts"). These scans can also be shared with the research community.
The dodo was a member of the pigeon family, so its living relatives include the pigeons in our cities and the doves whose calls accompany mornings around the world. Pigeons are famous for their navigational skills and are widely used by scientists to study animal cognition.
Is there any indication that the dodo's brain was much different? When we compared the dodo's brain to that of pigeons, we found that the dodo's forebrain, linked to cognition and memory, was similar in proportion to that of other pigeons when compared to the rest of the brain.
In other words, there is no evidence the dodo was less intelligent than any other pigeon. This is also backed up by previous research suggesting that brain size relative to body mass was similar to that of other pigeons.
So we think the dodo's trusting behavior was because it simply had nothing to fear until humans arrived, as is common for island species with no predators.
A giant pigeon with an unexpected twist
Where the dodo does differ dramatically from other pigeons is in its sensory systems, particularly its vision. The dodo's optic lobes, the brain region that first processes visual information in the bird brain, are unusually small—not just compared to pigeons, but also compared to another extinct flightless relative, the Rodrigues solitaire.
Is AI Reasoning Right for the Wrong Reasons?
I’ll just say it: What the hell is going on with AI “reasoning”?
Sorry for the air quotes. That punctuational side-eye was more common in 2024, when the specially trained cousins of LLMs now known as “large reasoning models,” or LRMs, were still new. Nowadays it may seem downright churlish, though, given that a “general-purpose reasoning model” from OpenAI solved a famous open mathematical research problem in one shot in May 2026. Still, I’m not sure how else to acknowledge my intellectual whiplash over the scientific interpretation of what these AI systems are actually doing.
Reasoning comes in many technically defined forms, but the basic procedure is easily recognizable: arriving at a sound conclusion by linking together intermediate steps that logically follow from each other. We do this with thoughts; LRMs use so-called chains of thought, a term of art for the streams of synthetic text that the models emit before arriving at an answer to a complex query. One minute, the idea that AI could reason via these chains was being prominently and credibly critiqued (by a team of researchers from Apple) as an “Illusion of Thinking” subject to “complete accuracy collapse” under surprisingly simple conditions. The next minute, LRMs were bagging gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad, a feat so challenging that “even very successful mathematicians and scientists may well highlight [it] on their CVs all their lives,” as the scientist and AI critic Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis wrote in 2025. If that’s not a sign of “real” reasoning, what is?
But wait — soon after, more research, from the Santa Fe Institute, showed that LRMs can crush even carefully designed benchmarks for reasoning (like a collection of analogy-like visual puzzles) using mere “surface-level ‘shortcuts.’”
What they were doing looked less like generalizable reasoning than just gaming the system. Then, as if on cue, another “hold my beer” moment: Google DeepMind and the mathematician Terence Tao (the GOAT!) used AI to rediscover or improve the solutions to 67 problems “spanning mathematical analysis, combinatorics, geometry, and number theory.” Deal with it, haters!
What about additional evidence that LRMs can’t reason reliably, even when they possess the necessary algorithm and computational budget to do so, and suffer from a list of scientifically documented failure states long enough to use as a Slip ’N Slide? Whatever — I guess that’s just “jagged intelligence” for you (AI-speak for “when it works, it works”).
And so it went from late 2025 into 2026. I’ve been a science journalist for 20 years and an AI journalist for half of that, so I know better than to expect tidy consistency out of rapidly advancing research. But even for me, this back-and-forth has been a bit much. To quote Al Pacino in The Insider, “I’m getting two things: pissed off, and curious.” I don’t believe there’s fraud to be found here. I just want to know which way is up. Can AI reasoning somehow be both BS and not at the same time? And if so, how on Earth does that work?
I knew just who to call first.
What a record-breaking El Niño could mean for the world
This year's El Niño is on track to be the strongest on record, threatening to unleash extreme weather across the globe and make 2027 the hottest recorded year by far. It is expected to be the most "intense" El Niño in more than a century, the head of long-range forecasting at the U.K.'s Met Office warned Friday.
Stacked on top of long-term human-caused climate change, the temporary jolt will offer a glimpse of the heat the world can expect by the late 2030s, experts say.
Here's what to know.
Neuroscientist Challenges the Idea That Your Brain “Makes” Decisions
For decades, both scientific theories and everyday thinking have treated decision-making as a separate step between perception and action. Under this traditional view, information moves through a linear sequence from sensing to thinking to acting, with each stage linked to a distinct brain function.
Many research methods, especially those used in model-based cognitive neuroscience, are built around this idea and reinforce it. It also matches our everyday experience. As James puts it, “Our actions feel like they are caused by decisions based on desires, beliefs, and intentions.”
However, James argues that this linear framework, often called the “sandwich model,” does not fit what scientists know about the brain. While researchers have identified neural systems for sensing and movement, there is no comparable brain mechanism that clearly serves as a dedicated decision-making stage.
From Decision-Making to Action Selection
Instead of proposing a separate decision-making center that directs behavior, James argues that actions emerge from the combined activity of sensory, sensorimotor, and motor processes. He prefers the term “action selection,” which reflects an ongoing interaction among the brain, body, and environment rather than a simple step-by-step process. He says this view also requires research methods that can better capture these dynamic interactions.
That does not mean decisions are unreal.
As James explains, “Of course they do. We use this language all the time, and it’s very helpful in terms of describing behavior. The leap, I think, is to say that the brain works by having decision-making or control processes. It produces behavior that is well described in that way. But it doesn’t need a process that does that to make it look that way.”
Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an agency satellite to a higher altitude to extend its science mission as planned. However, LINK still will attempt to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations with NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to demonstrate key capabilities for the future of space exploration.
NASA and Katalyst are working closely to assess next steps for rendezvous and gather as much data as possible to inform future satellite servicing operations.
Without intervention, NASA anticipates Swift is likely to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere later this year.
Read more:
go.nasa.gov/4ggh7ty
Graphene nanowrinkles could reshape electricity in future ultrathin devices
Rice University researchers have shown that tiny wrinkles in graphene can change the material's electrical properties, providing evidence for flexoelectricity, a phenomenon in which a material generates an electric charge when it bends unevenly. The findings are published in Advanced Materials.
The discovery suggests scientists may be able to control electricity in atomically thin materials by changing their shape instead of adding new chemicals or materials. The approach could one day lead to more sensitive sensors and ultrathin electronic devices.
"Our work shows that even an ordinary wrinkle can become an extraordinary electronic feature when viewed at the atomic scale," said Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Engineering and co-corresponding author of the study. "By demonstrating that geometry alone can reshape electrical behavior in graphene, we open a new pathway for designing materials whose properties can be controlled through structure rather than chemistry."
Another First for the JWST: It Detects Three Supermassive Black Holes in the Same Galaxy
The nature of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) is a hot topic in space science. It appears that all large galaxies like ours host an SMBH in their centers, but how these behemoths grew so massive is not clear. Neither are their origins, though most researchers agree that mergers certainly play a role.
A new discovery is bolstering the idea that mergers are behind the evolution and growth of SMBHs. Astronomers working with the JWST have found three actively accreting black holes in a single galaxy. No triple black hole galaxy has ever been seen before, though instances of three interacting galaxies with SMBHs have been observed.
The discovery is presented in new research in Astronomy and Astrophysics titled "BlackTHUNDER: Evidence of three massive black holes in a z ∼ 5 galaxy." The lead author is Hannah Übler from the Max Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics. The term BlackTHUNDER refers to a JWST observing program called "Black holes in the early Universe and their dense surroundings."
The galaxy in question is named J0148-4214 and it's more than 12.5 billion light years away. The JWST observed it as it appeared about 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. BlackTHUNDER was aimed at observing black holes this old, and the JWST used its NIRSpec Integrated Field Unit to detect the three actively accreting black holes.
They have solar masses of 80 million, 0.6 million, and 2 million. The first two are closest together while the third is more distant. "“The JWST data allowed us not only to identify the three black holes, but also to estimate their masses, accretion rates, and the stellar mass of the galaxy,” said Dr. Giovanni Mazzolari, second author of the study and researcher at MPE. “We find a total stellar mass of about 1.3 billion suns, and the black holes represent a significant fraction of that.”
Study finds some microbes drastically change behavior outside the lab
A new study underscores the importance of studying microbes in their natural setting rather than relying solely on laboratory research.
Researchers found that a set of corn root bacteria behaved completely differently when grown on the plant rather than in a lab, with thousands of proteins changing when placed in their natural habitat.
"Historically we've been reliant on in vitro experiments and experiments in the lab, and they're still very powerful," said Anna Garrell, a postdoctoral researcher at North Carolina State University and first author of a paper on the work published in mSystems. "But I think this is a good reminder that what you find in the lab is not necessarily what's going to be happening in the real environment."
For the study, researchers grew seven corn root bacteria both in a lab setting (in vitro) and on the plant (in planta) to measure differences in their behavior. While all the bacteria acted differently on the plant, the specifics varied from species to species.
"The biggest surprise we found was that all these bacteria interacted with the plant very differently," said Garrell. "Some, when they got to the root, became more motile and seemed to upregulate functions that would help them move and swim. Others did the exact opposite, where they would attach to the root and become much more stationary. Not all bacteria are made the same, nor do they interact with the plant the same."
AI companies look to the ocean as a place to put more data centers
The artificial intelligence boom is driving unprecedented demand for data centers, raising concerns about their growing energy consumption, water use and carbon footprint. These challenges are making companies look beyond traditional land-based data centers.
Some developers are now exploring the ocean as a new location for AI infrastructure, hoping underwater data centers could improve energy use and cooling efficiency while using less fresh water and land area than onshore buildings.
My research focuses on the societal, organizational and environmental implications of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and the digital infrastructure—including data centers—that supports its development and deployment. I see underwater data centers as a promising new approach for supporting the growth of AI.
But moving servers into the ocean does not make other underlying environmental challenges, such as energy consumption and carbon emissions, disappear. It also creates new concerns about harm to the marine environment, as well as questions about how these data centers can be regulated—and how companies can maintain and expand them if needed. Whether underwater data centers can become sustainable alternatives to traditional data centers depends on solving these economic, technical and environmental problems.
A magnetic path to lower-power computing
From smartphones to data centers, modern electronics rely on billions of tiny switches that consume electricity every time they turn on or off. As global demand for computing continues to grow, so does the energy required to power it. Scientists are therefore searching for alternatives that can perform the same tasks while using far less energy.
One promising approach uses clusters of tiny magnets, each thousands of times smaller than a grain of sand. A new study led by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, with contributions from the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory and Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile, has uncovered a geometric rule that determines whether clusters of nanomagnets behave predictably or probabilistically as they relax toward a stable state. The finding challenges standard modeling assumptions and opens new possibilities for ultralow-energy computing.
Nanomagnetic devices have already demonstrated the potential to operate using extremely small amounts of energy—possibly millions of times less than conventional electronic components. If such systems can be made reliable and scalable, they could help reduce the growing energy demands of computing infrastructure worldwide.
The new research offers a practical step toward that goal.
"We've shown that geometry alone can determine how energy moves through these magnetic systems," Arava said, "and that insight gives us a new way to design computing devices."
What is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope? Why do we need it? What will it unveil?
Learn more about Roman and how it will help us investigate some of the many mysteries of the universe. ⬇️
Roman is set to launch Aug 30th at 7:26 am ET. Stay up to date on the mission: go.nasa.gov/45skR6q
A new way to beat jet lag? Engineered cells speed circadian adjustment
Adjusting to a new time zone or work schedule can leave the body's internal clock out of sync for days, contributing to sleep disruption, metabolic changes and other health consequences. Researchers at Rice University and Northwestern University have developed an implantable cell therapy that may help the body adapt more quickly to these disruptions.
In a recent study titled "Encapsulated Leptin-Producing Cells Facilitate Entrainment of Circadian Rhythms in Rodents and Nonhuman Primates," encapsulated cells engineered to continuously produce the metabolic hormone leptin reduced the time required for animals to adjust to shifts in the light-dark cycle that mimic jet lag and shift work. Published in Advanced Science, the study's findings demonstrate a new approach to regulating circadian rhythms through metabolic signaling and provide early evidence that engineered cell therapies could be used to address circadian disruption.
A temporary metabolic nudge
"Current approaches for adjusting circadian rhythms rely heavily on precisely timed behaviors such as light exposure, meal schedules or melatonin administration," said Omid Veiseh, professor of bioengineering at Rice. "We wanted to explore whether a temporary cell therapy could provide a more practical way to help the body adapt to changing schedules."
The therapy consists of human retinal pigment epithelial cells engineered to produce leptin, a hormone best known for regulating appetite and metabolism. The cells are encapsulated within microscopic alginate spheres that protect them from the immune system while allowing therapeutic proteins to diffuse into the body. Following a simple subcutaneous injection, the encapsulated cells temporarily elevate circulating leptin levels before naturally losing viability over time.
"Metabolism and circadian rhythms are closely connected, but the therapeutic potential of that relationship remains largely unexplored," said Martha Hotz Vitaterna, professor of neurobiology at Northwestern University and co-corresponding author on the study. "These findings suggest that metabolic signals can be leveraged to accelerate adaptation to circadian disruptions."
Faster adjustment across species
In mouse studies, animals receiving the leptin-producing cell therapy adjusted significantly faster following both phase advances and phase delays in the light-dark cycle. Mice treated with the therapy adapted to a four-hour schedule delay 50% faster than control animals.
Astronomers Find Black Hole Star in Early Universe
Roughly 660 million years after the Big Bang, a strange bright red spot has been hiding in plain sight in one of the deepest fields ever imaged by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Astronomers at MIT now believe it may be the first confirmed example of an entirely new class of object: a black hole star.
MIT astronomer Rohan Naidu and colleagues spotted the object while hunting for some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe, as part of Webb’s Mirage or Miracle survey.
Labeled MoM-BH*-1, the source was essentially invisible in Webb’s bluer filters but blazed in the redder ones, giving it one of the most extreme colors ever recorded in a distant object.
Follow-up spectroscopy revealed why: the object shows the strongest ‘Balmer break’ ever measured at any redshift, a sharp drop in brightness at a wavelength normally associated with dense gas in the outer layers of stars.
Ordinary starlight simply can’t produce a break this severe; even the reddest known stellar populations top out at less than a third of the strength seen here.
The spectrum of MoM-BH*-1 also showed unusually broad emission from hydrogen gas, along with deep absorption features cutting through that emission — a combination that points to gas far denser than anything found in a typical star.
“The break we observed in this object is the deepest break we have ever observed in any object, ruling out ‘ordinary’ stars as the source,” Dr. Naidu said.
“But it made us wonder if we were seeing a new kind of ‘stellar atmosphere,’ but on a spectacular scale.”
“What’s more, the red dot’s light contained almost no signature of metals or any elements other than hydrogen and helium. It was truly singular in so many ways.”
To explain the pattern, the researchers modeled the object as a massive black hole, with a mass on the order of 100,000 to 10 million times that of the Sun, wrapped in an extraordinarily dense, turbulent envelope of hydrogen gas roughly 10 to 100 astronomical units across — about the scale of our Solar System.
Radiation from the black hole’s accretion disk filters through this gas cocoon, which absorbs and scatters the light to produce the object’s odd spectral fingerprint, while essentially no dust is needed to explain its redness.
Notably, MoM-BH*-1’s light output vastly exceeds what nuclear fusion could generate at that size, ruling out a normal star as the source and instead implicating an actively feeding black hole, possibly growing at or above the Eddington limit — the theoretical cap on how fast a black hole can accrete matter while still being pushed outward by its own radiation.
The scientists also detected tentative evidence the object brightened by around 30% over roughly two months, another hallmark of active black hole feeding...
☀️🌑 It's solar eclipse day!
🌍 If you're in the path of the totality or partial eclipse, use this online tool that can tell you precise timings for your location.
🕶 Hopefully you've got ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses but if you don't, here are 3 ways to observe the eclipse safely without them.
⚠️ You might be tempted to have a quick look, but don't risk it!
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) warns of the risk of retina damage if viewers look into the Sun without adequate protection. An eclipse makes the Sun appear dimmer, meaning you may be tempted to catch a glimpse with the naked eye.
However, this can override the body's natural reflex to look away, allowing intense sunlight to enter and damage the retina.
Crucially, the retina has no pain receptors, so you will not feel the damage as it happens.
Data from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists shows there were around 70 cases of vision problems following the 1999 solar eclipse, with around 40% viewing it for less than a minute.
'It's real, and it's happening': Antibiotic resistance in kids is rising around the world, massive study finds
In the past 20 years, an increasing number of bacterial infections caught by children have been resistant to antibiotics, a new study finds.
The research, published in July in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, looked back at the past two decades, as well as looked forward, to predict how resistance rates might change in the decade to come. By 2035, some critical antibiotics will be met with "steep increases" in resistance among common bacteria, such as Acinetobacter baumannii and Klebsiella, the analysis found.
Antibiotic resistance contributed to 840,000 deaths among children under 5 in 2021, global estimates suggest, so if resistance continues to increase, that number could grow.
"These forecasts are warning scenarios, not inevitable outcomes," said study co-author Dr. Yanhong Jessika Hu, a clinical epidemiologist and public health researcher at Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) in Australia. "The projections broadly assume that historical patterns continue without a major change in direction," Hu told Live Science in an email.
If significant action is taken, that trajectory could be altered, she said.
"Resistance increased across all regions"
Antibiotic resistance is sometimes called "a silent pandemic," as it poses a formidable threat without stirring as much concern as other health crises, such as viral outbreaks. Resistance has gained attention in recent years, but the data on how it has affected children is patchy, said study co-author Dr. Penelope Bryant, a clinician-researcher at MCRI, Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, and the University of Melbourne.
"It's perceived as being a lesser problem in children," Bryant told Live Science. "It's not a theoretical problem; it's real, and it's happening. But I think the visibility is just substantially less than in adults."
How to spot the Perseid meteor shower, a summer light show that promises to dazzle
The Perseid summer light show is back—and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere.
The meteor shower's peak Wednesday night into Thursday morning coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade—though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality.
🔬 More
• How to build the perfect solar eclipse kit for any budget
• August 12th solar eclipse path animation
• Find eclipse info for your location
As many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour may be visible under ideal conditions, according to NASA. The American Meteor Society estimates 30 to 50 meteors per hour could be seen from rural regions.
Random meteors are visible in dark skies on any given night. Meteor showers tend to put on dazzling celestial shows and happen at predictable times every year when the Earth plows through trails of debris left behind by comets and, sometimes, asteroids. Those remnants collide with Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds, producing streaks of light known as shooting stars.
The Perseids are a perennial favorite because they tend to produce brilliant fireballs. Summer temperatures also make this shower popular.
The moon will be in its new moon phase during the Perseids' peak, making viewing conditions even better.
To spot the meteors, go outside after dark, away from clouds and city lights. Venkatesan plans to drive to the Sierra Nevada.
The best views will be between midnight and dawn when the constellation Perseus is high in the northern sky. The meteors will appear to radiate from that constellation.
Look up and give your eyes a half hour to adjust to the darkness. Vanderbosch recommends picking a patch of sky to focus on until a quick, bright streak passes by—even in your peripheral vision—and to avoid looking at your phone.