- November 14, 2025

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November 14, 2025

- Giant North American 'hell pigs' could crunch bones like lions 30 million years ago, tooth analysis reveals

- Eruptions of ocean volcanoes may be the echoes of ancient continental breakups

- Chinese astronauts are back on Earth after suspected 'space junk' strike left them stranded in space

- Archaeologists discover 1,500-year-old reindeer trap and other artifacts 'melting out of the ice' in Norway's mountains

- Science history: Chemists discover buckyballs — the most perfect molecules in existence — Nov. 14, 1985

ANIMALS > EXTINCT SPECIES

NEWS | PATRICK PESTER | NOV 14, 2025, 9:43 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Giant North American 'hell pigs' could crunch bones like lions 30 million years ago, tooth analysis reveals

Archaeotherium, or North American "hell pigs," had different feeding strategies depending on their size, according to preliminary research presented at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 2025 annual meeting.

An Archaeotherium skull on display at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon. The photo is for illustrative purposes only; this fossil wasn't part of the new research. (Image credit: Gabbro via Alamy)

Giant North American "hell pigs" may have munched on bones around 30 million years ago, while their smaller counterparts ripped through softer material, like flesh, new research finds.

The "hell pigs," scientifically known as Archaeotherium ("ancient beast" in Greek), were a group of pig-like creatures that could be as tall as humans while standing on four legs and potentially weigh more than 2,000 pounds (1,000 kilograms).

Researchers have known about Archaeotherium since 1850. But now, a new tooth analysis reveals that these beasts' feeding strategies were more varied than previously assumed. By examining tooth wear, researchers saw that larger species were crushing bones or other hard material, while smaller species were likely shearing soft foods, potentially giving them different roles on the ancient North American landscape.

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"We can't assume that they were doing the same thing," Brynn Wooten, a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, told Live Science.

Wooten presented preliminary findings from her research Thursday (Nov. 13) at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 2025 annual meeting. The findings haven't been peer-reviewed yet, as Wooten and her colleagues still have to complete their research and submit it to a journal.

Whale of a pig

Archaeotherium roamed across North America from about 37 million to 23 million years ago. Despite their vaguely hoggish appearance, Archaeotherium was more closely related to whales and hippos than to pigs. Their heads were around 30% of their total body length (it varied by species), but their small brains meant they weren't the brightest tools in the Paleogenic shed.

"Archaeotherium has a brain-to-body mass ratio similar to that of reptiles, so they were very unintelligent creatures," Wooten said. "Their heads were massive, but they had little tiny brain cases."

Researchers previously suggested that Archaeotherium could have been active predators, scavengers and/or vegetation strippers. Bite marks on the fossils of Poebrotherium — small camel relatives that used to roam North America — indicate that Archaeotherium may have hunted Poebrotherium and stored some of the carcasses for leftovers.

An Archaeotherium fossil at an auction in London in 2011. The photo is for illustrative purposes only; this fossil wasn't part of the new research. (Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

For the new research, Wooten and Larisa DeSantis, an associate professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, examined a variety of Archaeotherium teeth from different states, including Nebraska, South Dakota, Oregon and Colorado. By using dental microwear texture analysis, which involves creating 3D scans of the tooth surface with a powerful microscope, they could compare wear variation between the different Archaeotherium teeth.

On the whole, Archaeotherium was typically similar to peccaries (pig-like animals found in the Americas), which shear their food. However, wear on the larger-bodied Archaeotherium was statistically indistinguishable from that of lions and hyenas and indicative of an animal that crushed its food.

"It's really interesting that the large ones are capable of crunching bones," DeSantis told Live Science. "The small ones are not."

The crushing wear could mean that the larger species engaged in more scavenging behaviors, potentially using their great size to bully other predators off their kills, the researchers suggested. On the other hand, the larger Archaeotherium could have been consuming more hard vegetarian foods, such as tubers or woody browse. The soft veggie option for smaller Archaeotherium may have been leaves and grasses.

So far, the dental analysis reveals only the texture of Archaeotherium food — not which species they ate. Wooten will now explore other research techniques, including calcium isotope analysis, to confirm whether bone was part of Archaeotherium's diet.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/animals/extinct-species/giant-north-american-hell-pigs-could-crunch-bones-like-lions-30-million-years-ago-tooth-analysis-reveals at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PLANET EARTH > VOLCANOS

NEWS | ELISE POORE | NOV 14, 2025, 8:21 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Eruptions of ocean volcanoes may be the echoes of ancient continental breakups

Waves in Earth's mantle created by the rifting of continents may peel the planet's crust from below, feeding volcanoes in the middle of the ocean.

Rocks from the Christmas Island Seamount appear to come from unusual magma that came from continental, rather than oceanic crust. (Image credit: Gary Low/Getty Images)

The eruptions of some mid-ocean volcanoes may be the echoes of supercontinent breakups that persisted for tens of millions of years after the rearrangement of Earth's surface, a new study suggests.

The new research hints that long after continents rift apart, instabilities in the mantle created by the breakups continue to eat away at the bases of continents, peeling off crust and feeding ocean volcanoes with unusual magma.

This phenomenon could explain why these volcanoes exist and create ocean outposts like the Christmas Island Seamount, a mountain chain in the Indian Ocean. One of these mountains, Christmas Island, pokes above sea level. It's a nature preserve famous for its lush rainforests and the annual migration of millions of crabs (Gecarcoidea natalis) — an event that coats the island in red carapaces.

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The discovery is a "completely new mechanism" that also shapes the composition of the mantle, Thomas Gernon, a professor of geology at the University of Southampton in the U.K. and lead author of the new study, said in a statement.

The Christmas Island Seamount and similar undersea volcanoes have magma with odd compositions; they contain minerals that seem more like continental crust than oceanic crust. Researchers have hypothesized that perhaps these volcanoes are dredging up the remnants of oceanic crust that, long ago, was subducted into the mantle, carrying coastal sediments from the continents along with it.

Another idea is that mantle plumes — upwellings of rock from the deep mantle — are carrying ancient continental material back to the surface. But the unusual magmas are different enough that there may not be a single source that explains all of them, Gernon and his colleagues wrote in their new paper, published Nov. 11 in the journal Nature Geoscience.

A fragment of the lowermost continental mantel, which appears to have been swept into the oceanic mantle. (Image credit: Prof Tom Gernon, University of Southampton)

Instead, Gernon and his colleagues suggest that these volcanoes may be fed by continental rocks of various ages and compositions that peel off into the mantle after cataclysmic continental breakups. They examined volcanic rocks from the Walvis Ridge, an ocean ridge that stretches away from Africa starting near northern Namibia. These rocks showed a pattern where older eruptions contained magma that was more continent-like and gradually transitioned to more ocean-rock-like compositions.

Using computer models, the researchers found that after a continental breakup, a series of roiling waves in the mantle can travel toward the interior of the shifting continent, scraping continental crust off the bottom like a peeler against potato skin. This mineral-enriched material enters the mantle within a few million years of the continental breakup and does not return to the surface for about 5 million to 15 million years, the simulations showed. The process supplies tens of millions of years' worth of continental rock to the mantle, peaking about 50 million years after the rift of continents.

To test these ideas in the real world, the researchers next turned to the Christmas Island Seamount, again studying the ages and compositions of the volcanic rocks there. They found a pattern that matched the simulations: About 116 million years ago, 10 million years after India split from what would become Antarctica and Australia, the first volcanoes at the seamount started to erupt. The magmas were rich in continent-like minerals — a pattern that peaked within 40 million to 60 million years of the breakup. This enrichment gradually declined over time so that the magma looked more typical of oceanic rock.

The discovery points to the long-lasting impacts of a continent's breakup, the study authors said.

"We found that the mantle is still feeling the effects of continental breakup long after the continents themselves have separated," study co-author Sascha Brune, a geodynamicist at GFZ Potsdam in Germany, said in the statement. "The system doesn't switch off when a new ocean basin forms — the mantle keeps moving, reorganising, and transporting enriched material far from where it originated."

What's inside Earth quiz: Test your knowledge of our planet's hidden layers

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/eruptions-of-ocean-volcanoes-may-be-the-echoes-of-ancient-continental-breakups at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > SPACE EXPLORATION

NEWS | PATRICK PESTER | NOV 14, 2025, 8:06 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Chinese astronauts are back on Earth after suspected 'space junk' strike left them stranded in space

The Shenzhou-20 crew of Chen Dong, Wang Jie and Chen Zhongrui have landed back on Earth after a suspected piece of space junk left them stranded on China's Tiangong space station.

The Shenzhou-20 crew left Earth after a send-off ceremony on April 24. Chen Dong (center), Chen Zhongrui (right) and Wang Jie (left) are pictured here at the ceremony. (Image credit: VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Three Chinese astronauts have returned to Earth after a suspected piece of space junk left them stranded on China's Tiangong space station, officials have announced.

Chen Dong, Wang Jie and Chen Zhongrui — the crew of China’s Shenzhou-20 mission — left the space station in a return capsule and landed in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday (Nov. 14), Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported. The crew spent 204 days in orbit, a new record for a taikonaut (Chinese astronaut) crew.

The taikonaut trio began their record-breaking stay at the Tiangong space station — Mandarin for "heavenly palace" — in April. They were originally due to return to Earth on Nov. 5 but were forced to extend their time in space after their original return capsule was struck by an object, believed to be space debris, just hours before it was due to depart.

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Earlier this week, representatives from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said that engineers were performing tests on a backup capsule to bring the stranded taikonauts home. The Shenzhou-20 crew has now come back in the return capsule of the Shenzhou-21 spaceship, which carried their replacement crew to the space station.

The Shenzhou-21 spaceship undocked from the Tiangong space station on Friday at 11:14 a.m. Beijing time (10:14 p.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 13). Then, the return capsule containing the taikonauts separated from the Shenzhou-21's orbital capsule at 2:49 p.m. Beijing time (1:49 a.m. ET), before landing on Earth at 4:40 p.m. Beijing time (3:40 a.m. ET), Xinhua reported.

There's still uncertainty surrounding exactly what happened to the original return capsule. However, the amount of space junk around Earth is increasing, with things like rocket boosters and other discarded space travel objects cluttering up the place and increasing the risk of collisions with crewed spacecraft.

The Shenzhou-20 crewmembers are reportedly in good health after their eventful stay, according to Xinhua. Their 204 days in orbit may be a record for Chinese crews, but it's far from the longest time humans have spent in space. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams were famously on the International Space Station (ISS) for 286 consecutive days between 2024 and 2025 due to issues with Boeing's Starliner, which returned to Earth without any passengers. The astronauts were eventually brought home aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, 272 days after they were scheduled to return to Earth.

However, astronauts often have long stays at the ISS, with astronaut Frank Rubio setting the American record after accidentally spending 371 days there between 2022 and 2023.

Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov has the world record — or out-of-this-world record — for the most consecutive days spent in space, having worked on Russia's former Mir space station for 437 days, between 1994 and 1995.

Spending prolonged periods in space can have a variety of health impacts, but any changes in the body typically revert to normal within six months of returning to Earth. That said, researchers still have a lot to learn about how space travel affects human health.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/chinese-astronauts-are-back-on-earth-after-suspected-space-junk-strike-left-them-stranded-in-space at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:29 AM EST.

ARCHAEOLOGY

NEWS | KRISTINA KILLGROVE | NOV 14, 2025, 6:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Archaeologists discover 1,500-year-old reindeer trap and other artifacts 'melting out of the ice' in Norway's mountains

The well-preserved reindeer trap may be unique in Europe.

The reindeer hunting facility emerging from the ice in Norway. (Image credit: Thomas Bruen Olsen/University Museum of Bergen)

High up in the icy mountains of Norway, archaeologists have discovered a unique 1,500-year-old reindeer trap, alongside several mysterious wooden objects, including a decorated boat oar that seems out of place 4,600 feet (1,400 meters) above sea level.

"These are items we would never find in ordinary excavations, including a pine oar and a clothing pin made of antler," Leif Inge Åstveit, an archaeologist at the University Museum of Bergen, said in a statement from the Vestland County Municipality. "The pin is shaped like a miniature axe — truly exceptional finds."

Archaeologists have been excavating in the mountainous Aurlandsfjellet area of western Norway since August. They discovered hundreds of tree branches piled into two wooden barriers that likely functioned as a kind of hunting blind or trap.

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"A 1,500-year-old mass trapping facility composed of wooden branches that is literally melting out of the ice in front of our eyes is probably unique in both Norwegian and European contexts," Åstveit said.

The team also found a significant number of reindeer antlers near the trapping facility. All had cut marks, suggesting that the animals were trapped, killed and potentially processed on-site.

In addition to the trap, the archaeologists recovered numerous artifacts assumed to be directly linked to the hunt, including iron spears, wooden arrows and three bows. The finds also included a delicate brooch made from antler and shaped like a miniature ax, which was perhaps accidentally dropped by a hunter during the kill, according to the statement.

Archaeologists found this decorated oar emerging from the ice in Norway's mountains. (Image credit: Thomas Bruen Olsen/University Museum of Bergen)

But the archaeologists are stumped by the intricately carved wooden oar they found. Further study in the coming years may help to clarify why the oar was carried up the mountains.

Experts think the reindeer trapping site was preserved thanks to the onset of a cooling period in the mid-sixth century. Cold temperatures may have led to an increase in snowfall and ice, causing the hunters to abandon the site. The exceptional preservation of the antlers suggests the hunting facility was buried by snow and ice shortly after it was abandoned, according to the statement.

Archaeologists found this ax-shaped antler pin in the ice. (Image credit: Thomas Bruen Olsen/University Museum of Bergen)

"This discovery opens up entirely new interpretations and understandings of how these facilities functioned," Åstveit said. "The exceptionally well-preserved antler and wood materials will contribute significantly to research in the coming years."

Global warming is contributing to the reemergence of ice-covered sites like this one, according to the statement. A similar site with reindeer-hunting weapons and blinds was discovered in Norway's mountains in 2022. Nordic archaeologists also recently recovered 1,300-year-old wooden skis, a Viking horse bridle and a 1,700-year-old leather sandal melting out of glaciers.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/archaeologists-discover-1-500-year-old-reindeer-trap-and-other-artifacts-melting-out-of-the-ice-in-norways-mountains at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

CHEMISTRY

FEATURES | TIA GHOSE | NOV 14, 2025, 2:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Science history: Chemists discover buckyballs — the most perfect molecules in existence — Nov. 14, 1985

Over a feverish 10-day period, scientists synthesized and described a new class of carbon molecules, called buckminster fullerenes, after the iconic 20th-century inventor.

An illustration of a bucky ball, a 60-carbon-molecule that strongly resembles a geodesic dome. Scientists first characterized these highly symmetrical molecules in 1985. (Image credit: KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images)

Over a feverish 10-day period in 1985, scientists conceived of a new molecule of perfect symmetry — and named it after one of the 20th century's most famous inventors and futurists.

The hunt started in the 1970s when Harry Kroto, a lab chemist at the University of Sussex in the U.K., was puzzling over the discovery of a primordial soup of organic molecules in the "vast dark clouds that lie between the stars," Kroto said in his Nobel Prize speech.

But radio and light-based data from this interstellar medium suggested there were many more long carbon-chains than should have been possible given the astrophysical molecular synthesis theories of the time. Scientists began to wonder whether cooling red giant stars were pumping the interstellar medium full of these six to eight carbon chains.

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The eureka moment for Kroto was a visit to the Rice University laboratories of chemists Robert Kurl and Richard Smalley. Smalley had a special apparatus in which a laser beam vaporized atoms on the surface of a metal disk, then swept them up into a helium cloud and a vacuum to cool them, finally analyzing their makeup using another laser.

Kroto began to wonder if they could simulate the outer shells of cool red giants by swapping out the metal disk for one made of graphite, a form of carbon.

Over the first 10 days of September, the trio, along with graduate students Sean O'Brien, and Jim Heath, produced the six-to-eight-carbon chains that supported the red giant theory.

But there were some interlopers: strange forms of carbon made up of 60 carbon atoms, and a smaller concentration of an even-larger byproduct made up of 70 carbon atoms. These "uninvited guests," as Kroto called them, had actually been found in an experiment from Exxon Corporate Research Science Laboratory in New Jersey about a year earlier, but no one had paid them much attention.

After days of working, on Sept. 9, the team came to a conclusion about its structure. "C60 appeared to be really quite unreactive, а behavior difficult to reconcile with a flat hexagonal graphene sheet-the most obvious first thought," Kroto said.

In theory, a flat graphene sheet would have had tons of dangling bonds that would make it more reactive.

For many days, the scientists worked with toothpicks and jellybeans, paper cutouts of hexagons and pentagons, and other "low-tech" modeling solutions to try to puzzle out the structure of this 60-carbon molecule.

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Kroto thought back to the 1967 Expo in Montreal, where 20th-century futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller was showcasing a geodesic dome, a spherical structure with a network of triangles on its surface, which he had patented in the 1950s. Smalley went to his office to grab a book detailing Fuller’s work, and they figured out the proposed structure.

Buckminster Fuller, who patented the geodesic dome in the 1950s, stands in front of his creation at the U.S. pavilion of the 1967 World's Fair. Fuller's dome inspired researchers to decipher the structure of the 60-carbon molecule known as buckminster fullerene. (Image credit: Bettmann via Getty Images)

The resulting compound, which they named buckminster fullerene, was a molecule of incredible symmetry. The paper describing their new molecule was published Nov. 14, 1985 in the journal Nature, and they were soon nicknamed buckyballs.

Over the next few years, the team deduced the properties of the class of closed molecules, called fullerenes. And by 1990, scientists had figured out that by putting an electric arc between two sticks of carbon, they could produce scads of buckyballs.

Kroto, Smalley and Curl won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery and characterization of buckyballs.

Fullerenes as a class have proven useful, and chemical relatives of buckyballs, called nanotubes, are super strong and have high thermal and electrical conductivity. These nanotubes have become crucial in atomic force microscopes, batteries, coatings and biosensors. But though scientists have proposed using buckyballs in everything from quantum computing to drug delivery, they have yet to find their niche in mainstream applications.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/chemistry/science-history-chemists-discover-buckyballs-the-most-perfect-molecules-in-existence-nov-14-1985 at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:29 AM EST.

November 13, 2025

- New image of 'other comet ATLAS' reveals it's breaking apart ahead of close approach to Earth

- This budget-friendly Fenix 8 alternative hits the lowest-ever price ahead of Black Friday

- 2 million black 'streaks' on Mars finally have an explanation, solving 50-year mystery

- Study reveals why the brain 'zones out' when you're exhausted

- Earth's magnetic field has a weak spot — and it's getting bigger, putting astronauts and satellites at risk

- New 'Dragon Hatchling' AI architecture modeled after the human brain could be a key step toward AGI, researchers claim

- Parts of Arizona are being sucked dry, with areas of land sinking 6 inches per year, satellite data reveals

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > COMETS

NEWS | BEN TURNER | NOV 13, 2025, 2:05 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

New image of 'other comet ATLAS' reveals it's breaking apart ahead of close approach to Earth

New images show that comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) has fragmented after passing its closest point to the sun, ahead of its close approach to Earth later this month. This is not the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

A new telescope image of the comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) shows it has broken into pieces following its recent close approach to the sun. The comet is not related to the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi / The Virtual Telescope Project)

The "other" Comet ATLAS has fragmented, transforming into a cloud of debris that's streaming into space, new observations have revealed.

The comet, called C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), was discovered in May by astronomers at the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) and passed perihelion, or closest point to the sun, on Oct. 8. It has no relation to the famous interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, other than having been discovered by the same telescope network around the same time.

Initial observations appeared to suggest that Comet K1 survived its passage around our star at a minimum distance of 31 million miles (50 million kilometers), or roughly four times closer than Comet 3I/ATLAS got.

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However, new observations taken by astronomer Gianluca Masi in Manciano, Italy, show that the gravitational strain of its voyage around the sun was too much for the comet, causing it to fragment into several pieces, or clouds.

"Several parts (sub-nuclei or clouds of debris) are visible, also a plume just below the leading (the first from the left) fragment," Masi, an astronomer at the Astronomical Observatory of Campo Catino and the founder of The Virtual Telescope Project, wrote in an update.

C/2025 K1's disintegration was portended by a sudden brightening event around perihelion, which saw the comet transform from the greenish hue seen in many comets that fly close to our sun (caused by the presence of diatomic carbon fluorescing in sunlight) into a streaking ribbon of gold.

The cause of this transformation is unclear; some scientists speculate that the change in color had something to do with a relative lack of carbon-bearing molecules in the comet's coma (the cloud of ice, gas and dust around the comet's body).

A recent photo of C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) shows that it developed a golden glow after passing its closest point to the sun. (Image credit: Dan Bartlett)

If you want to see the exploded comet for yourself, look in the constellation Leo, where it's shining at magnitude 9.9, according to The Sky Live. (In astronomy, a lower magnitude corresponds to a brighter object; Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, has an apparent magnitude of about 1.35, for example.) Although the comet is still too dim to be seen with the naked eye, it can be spotted with a good telescope or a pair of stargazing binoculars.

Whatever survives of the comet is set to pass closest to Earth on Nov. 25. It will come within about 37 million miles (60 million km), or just under half the average distance between Earth and the sun.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/new-image-of-other-comet-atlas-reveals-its-breaking-apart-ahead-of-close-approach-to-earth at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

HEALTH > EXERCISE

DEALS | ANNA GORA | NOV 13, 2025, 12:00 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

This budget-friendly Fenix 8 alternative hits the lowest-ever price ahead of Black Friday

Now, that's an excellent way to kickstart the Black Friday sale: the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar is 22% off at Amazon.

(Image credit: Garmin/ Future)

Amazon in November is one of the best places to hunt for discounted Garmin watches. The Black Friday sale has not even started yet, but the online giant has already treated us to some excellent early deals. The price of the wallet-friendly Forerunner 265, for example, has just been slashed by a third, while the runners' favorite, the Forerunner 965, is now a huge 25% off. The offer that takes the cake for us, however, is the one on the Garmin Instinct 3.

The Garmin Instinct 3 Solar GPS smartwatch is now 22% off and at its lowest-ever price at Amazon.

Released in January, the Instinct 3 is one of Garmin's best adventure smartwatches to date, and an excellent budget-friendly alternative to the ultra-premium Fenix 8. It is also one of our all-time favorites. Andrew Williams, our experienced fitness tech reviewer, has given it a strong 4-star rating in his Garmin Instinct 3 review, and we also named it the best option for triathletes in our guide to the best Garmin watches.

Best for outdoor activities

Save 22% ($100)

Garmin Instinct 3 Solar: was $449.99 now $349.99 at Amazon

Save 22% on the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar at Amazon. With its solar charging lens, tough 50 mm polymer case, 10ATM water resistance, built-in flashlight and dual-band GPS, it is one of the best Garmin watches for triathletes and outdoor enthusiasts.

View Deal

Andrew Williams

Live Science contributor

Andrew Williams is a freelance journalist and fitness tech reviewer based near London, England. He has written extensively about smartwatches, mobile phones and computers for sites such as WIRED, TechRadar, TrustedReviews, Wareable, Stuff, T3 and Pocket-lint. He has reviewed nearly two dozen Garmin watches for Live Science, and is one of the biggest contributors to our guides on the best fitness trackers and best running watches.

- Our experts have also reviewed and rated the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, fitness trackers, running shoes, rowing machines and more.

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Andrew Williams reviewed the non-solar version of the Garmin Instinct 3 in March this year.(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

The Garmin Instinct 3 has won our approval on several accounts, but what impressed us the most was its relatively light build. Most GPS smartwatches with such high-octane specifications — 10ATM water resistance, 24 days of battery life and built-in LED flashlight, to name just a few — are heavy and uncomfortable to wear. Not the Instinct 3, though. While still a relatively bulky wearable, it does not weigh your wrist down and you can comfortably wear it in bed.

Moreover, the Garmin Instinct 3 packs an excellent range of tracking features. This GPS smartwatch will easily keep up with your outdoor adventures, whether you are a triathlete prepping for the next season, an avid hiker or a seasoned marathon runner. The Garmin Instinct 3 may not have the advanced mapping features and smartwatch capabilities of the Fenix 8, but it is surely the next-best thing if you are not willing to spend a four-figure fortune. For less than $350? It is simply a steal.

Key features: 1.3-inch 416 x 416 AMOLED display, 10ATM water resistance, dual-band GPS, 4 GB internal storage, up to 24 days of battery life.

Product launched: January 2025

Price history: Before today's deal, the lowest price on the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar was $399.99, and for the better part of this year, the price sat at $449.99. Today's offer from Amazon brings the price down to $349.99, which is the lowest price we have ever seen.

Price comparison: Amazon: $349.99 | Walmart: $449.99 | Best Buy: $449.99 | REI: $450

Reviews consensus: The Garmin Instinct 3 received a lot of positive feedback across the board, with most reviews praising this rugged GPS smartwatch for its highly accurate navigation features, long battery life and vibrant display. Many testers also appreciated its relatively light, comfortable build and intuitive button-based controls. Negative remarks, on the other hand, often revolved around the lack of a touchscreen, full topographic maps and onboard music storage. Some testers also complained about the relatively high price of the Garmin Instinct 3.

TechRadar: ★★★★½ | Toms Guide: ★★★★½ | Android Central: ★★★★ | T3: ★★★★

Featured in guides: Best Garmin watches

✅ Buy it if: You want a rugged GPS adventure smartwatch at a reasonable price.

❌ Don't buy it if: You want advanced mapping features, music storage and other frills typical of premium smartwatches (and if that is what you are after, consider the Garmin Fenix 7X Sapphire Solar, now a huge $350 off at Walmart).

Check out our other guides to the best fitness trackers, smart rings, sleep trackers, budget fitness trackers and much more.

$449.99 at Amazon

$449.99 at Jenson USA

$449.99 at Competitive Cyclist

$449.99 at Best Buy

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/health/exercise/garmin-instinct-3-hits-the-lowest-ever-price-ahead-of-black-friday at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > PLANETS > MARS

NEWS | HARRY BAKER | NOV 13, 2025, 11:17 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

2 million black 'streaks' on Mars finally have an explanation, solving 50-year mystery

A new analysis of data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveals that the majority of the Red Planet's dark "slope streaks" did not form as most researchers previously assumed.

The slopes of Martian volcanoes, and other topographical features, are covered in an estimated 1.6 million dark "streaks." They were first spotted in the 1970s, but we are only just beginning to understand how they form. (Image credit: NASA/HiRISE/MRO/LPL (U. Arizona))

Millions of mysterious black streaks littered across the surface of Mars have puzzled scientists for decades, but now researchers may finally have a proper explanation. The new theory also explains why it has taken so long to solve this particular problem.

Martian "slope streaks" are dark albedo features that cover the slopes of topographical features across the Red Planet. They were discovered in the 1970s, and scientists initially assumed they were evidence of landslides caused by melting ice. But while scientists still think that the streaks are the result of landslides, a study published in May revealed that these landslides are actually triggered by "dry processes" that do not involve any water. This narrowed down the list of potential causes but did not conclusively settle the debate around the streaks' origins.

One of the most famous examples of these streaks is on Apollinaris Mons — an extinct shield volcano located just south of Mars' equator. Here, hundreds of parallel streaks can be seen on a single side of a large ridge, giving the structure a "barcode-like" appearance (see below). These streaks appeared at some point between 2013 and 2017, and scientists later realized that they were the result of a nearby meteoroid impact, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.

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As a result, some researchers assumed that meteoroid impacts and other seismic events, such as marsquakes, are responsible for birthing most slope streaks. But a new study, published Nov. 6 in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that this is not the case.

Instead, an analysis of around 2.1 million slope streaks, photographed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter between 2006 and 2024, revealed that almost all new streaks are the result of seasonal wind and dust erosion. (The study estimates the total number of slope streaks on Mars to be around 1.6 million, but some streaks were included in multiple image sets.)

The barcode-like slope streaks on Apollinaris Mons were created by landslides triggered by a nearby meteoroid impact. But the new study suggests that this is exceptionally rare. (Image credit: ESA/TGO/CaSSIS)

"Dust, wind and sand dynamics appear to be the main seasonal drivers of slope streak formation," the study's sole author Valentin Bickel, a planetary scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who also co-authored the May study, said in a statement. "Meteoroid impacts and quakes seem to be locally distinct, yet globally relatively insignificant drivers [of streak formation]," he added.

Bickel estimates that less than 0.1% of newly formed slope streaks are created by meteoroid impacts or marsquakes.

Bickel's analysis showed that slope streaks are grouped into five key regions across Mars, and that new streaks form in each of these areas when seasonal wind speeds are highest and exceed the threshold for "dust mobilization." Once this threshold has been surpassed, landslides can more easily occur in that area, Bickel added.

This process is similar to how high winds can pick up Martian dust and trigger sizable tornadoes, or "dust devils," on the Red Planet's wide-open plains.

The reason it has taken scientists so long to solve this puzzle is likely because it all happens under the cover of darkness. "The conditions most conducive to seasonal streak formation appear to occur at sunrise and sunset, explaining the lack of direct observations of streak-forming events to date," Bickel wrote in the study.

The new study suggests that slope streaks may play a much greater role in the Martian dust cycle than previously realized. Every few years, Mars is engulfed by global dust storms that engulf the entire planet, as you can see in these photos taken in June 2001 (left) and July 2001 (right). (Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS)

The study also revealed that slope streak formation likely occurs at an annual rate of around 0.05 new streaks per existing streak. Given that there are estimated to be 1.6 million slope streaks, that means the current rate of formation is around 80,000 new streaks per year. Most streaks likely last for several decades before disappearing, but there is not enough orbiter data to tell for sure.

While slope streaks cover less than 0.1% of Mars' surface, the new study suggests that they may be the largest single contributor to atmospheric dust. Therefore, better understanding the streaks' role in the Martian dust cycle, which could impact future human colonies on Mars, should be a key goal for future Mars missions.

"These observations could lead to a better understanding of what happens on Mars today," Colin Wilson, the European Space Agency's project scientist for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, who was not involved in the new study, said in the statement. "Obtaining long-term, continuous and global-scale observations that reveal a dynamic Mars is a key objective of present and future orbiters."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/mars/2-million-black-streaks-on-mars-finally-have-an-explanation-solving-50-year-mystery at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

HEALTH > SLEEP

NEWS | SOPHIE BERDUGO | NOV 13, 2025, 11:05 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Study reveals why the brain 'zones out' when you're exhausted

Your sleep-deprived brain behaves as if you were about to nod off to sleep, even when you're awake.

Scans of people's brains after they pulled an all-nighter show patterns of blood (red) and cerebrospinal fluid (blue) flow that are normally reserved for non-REM sleep. (Image credit: Zinong Yang)

We've all experienced the intense struggle to pay attention after a bad night's sleep — and a new study shows what happens in the brain as that feeling arises.

When you zone out after pulling an all-nighter, the brain flushes out cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which surrounds the brain and spinal cord and is part of the brain's waste-disposal system. This CSF then floods back into the brain when you snap out of it, according to the study, published Oct. 29 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

These fatigue-induced attention failures are also accompanied by massive changes in blood flow and pupil size, the study found. Until now, these physiological responses were not known to work in tandem when the brain spaced out from exhaustion.

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"By measuring so many different kinds of information about the brain at the same time, we were able to see that these many different things that at first we thought were separate were actually kind of moving together," study co-author Laura Lewis, an associate professor of neuroscience at MIT, told Live Science.

Sleep is critical for maintaining a healthy brain, and experts recommend that adults get seven to nine hours of shut-eye a night. Not getting enough sleep takes a toll on a person's mental and physical health, and also impairs our ability to pay attention. "However, the neural basis of sleep deprivation-induced attentional failures is not yet well understood," the authors wrote in the study.

To investigate, they recruited 26 healthy volunteers ages 19 to 40 — of whom 19 were female. All the participants took part in two study conditions spaced roughly 10 days apart: well-rested and sleep-deprived. Half completed the well-rested session first, while the others started with sleep deprivation.

The rested individuals slept for 6.5 to 9 hours at home, while sleep-deprived individuals were kept awake all night in the laboratory. In the morning before each trial, the team strapped electroencephalogram (EEG) caps onto the participants to record their brain waves with electrodes. Simultaneously, the participants underwent functional MRI (fMRI) scans to reveal patterns in blood and CSF flow in the brain. Eye-trackers measured the participants' pupil size.

Those are things that we don't usually think about as being tightly locked in time — your ability to pay attention to the world and then basic fluid movement in the brain.

Laura Lewis, MIT

The participants then completed tasks that flexed their visual and auditory attention; they pressed a button as soon as they saw an image or heard a noise. Additionally, the researchers gathered data on baseline brain activity by having the participants rest for 25 minutes without doing any tasks.

As expected, participants took longer to notice the stimuli when tired, and missed the cues more often than they did when they were well rested. But the team was surprised to see giant pulses of CSF in the exhausted individuals, alongside patterns of slow brain waves — both of which are normally observed in non-REM sleep.

Specifically, the patterns resembled that seen as a person shifts from stage N1 into N2, the first two of three stages of non-REM sleep that people experience each slumber. "This was something that previously we'd only seen on this scale during sleep," Lewis said.

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The CSF flow was closely linked to pupil size, with the large inward flow following pupil dilation and the outflow coming after pupil constriction. This connection was more pronounced in sleep-deprived individuals, which could suggest the body's circulatory system underpins this coupling, the authors wrote. The CSF flows also coincided with when individuals zoned out during tasks.

"When you have attention failures … you have this fluid being flushed out of your brain, and when you regain attention, when you begin to respond to stimuli again, this fluid is flowing back into the brain," study first author Zinong Yang, a computational neuroscientist at MIT, told Live Science.

"Those are things that we don't usually think about as being tightly locked in time — your ability to pay attention to the world and then basic fluid movement in the brain," Lewis added.

The researchers think that the brain patterns they're seeing might reflect the sleep-deprived brain shifting into a sleep-like state, but while it's still awake. The lapses in attention signal the start of these sleep-like brain processes, but they get interrupted before proper sleep sets in.

But for now, the functional reason behind the huge shifts in blood flow are not clear, Lewis noted. Future work could examine whether and how these patterns affect the clearance of toxic metabolic waste from the brain, the authors wrote.

Michael Chee, director of the Centre for Sleep and Cognition at the National University of Singapore, who was not involved in the study, said the research is "an impressive piece of physiology work." He thinks the autonomic nervous system, which controls unconscious bodily functions, is driving these signals.

"I think that the big lesson is that 'Hey, look; this humble autonomic system that we don't really pay attention to is actually orchestrating some of the biggest signal changes, pupil changes, EEG signal changes, BOLD signal [fMRI] changes,'" he told Live Science.

However, Chee emphasized that the participants experienced 24 hours of sleep deprivation, whereas most people lose only a few hours of sleep on a bad night. "That's a heavy manipulation," he said, so "they are outsized effects."

Studying these brain changes in people with sleep problems could point to new treatment targets, Chee added.

Sleep quiz: How much do you know about sleep and dreams?

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/health/sleep/study-reveals-why-the-brain-zones-out-when-youre-exhausted at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PLANET EARTH

NEWS | EOS.ORG, TOM METCALFE | NOV 13, 2025, 8:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Earth's magnetic field has a weak spot — and it's getting bigger, putting astronauts and satellites at risk

This could be bad news for satellites and spacefarers.

Aurorae such as the southern lights, seen here over Antarctica, show the geomagnetic field in action. Some areas of the field, which shields Earth’s surface from charged solar particles, are stronger than others. (Image credit: D. Michalik/NSF/SPT)

A weak spot in Earth's protective magnetic field is growing larger and exposing orbiting satellites and astronauts to more solar radiation, according to more than a decade of measurements by three orbiting observatories.

The observations by the European Space Agency's Swarm trio of satellites found that Earth's already weak magnetic field over the South Atlantic Ocean — a region known as the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) — is getting worse and that it has grown by an area half the size of continental Europe since 2014. At the same time, a region over Canada where the field is particularly strong has shrunk, while another strong field region in Siberia has grown, the measurements show.

"The region of weak magnetic field in the South Atlantic has continued to increase in size over the past 11 years since the launch of the Swarm satellite constellation," explained Chris Finlay, a geomagnetism researcher at the Danmarks Tekniske Universitet. "Although its growth was expected based on early observations, it is important to confirm this change in Earth's magnetic field is continuing." Finlay is the lead author of a new study published in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors that analyzes data from the Swarm satellites.

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Geomagnetic field

The three satellites were launched in 2014 to precisely monitor magnetic signals from Earth's core and mantle, as well as from the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Earth's magnetic field (technically, the "geomagnetic field") is thought to be generated by a rotating core of molten iron, roughly 2,900 kilometers, or 1,800 miles, beneath our feet. But the strength of the field changes continuously, and scientists are still learning about its exact mechanisms.

The geomagnetic field protects life on Earth's surface from harmful charged particles in solar radiation. We can see the effects of charged particles from the Sun interacting with the geomagnetic field in the upper atmosphere during aurorae such as the northern lights.

And because it extends into space, the geomagnetic field also protects orbiting spacecraft, including most satellites and the International Space Station (ISS). However, the study authors warn that spacecraft — and spacefarers — that enter the South Atlantic weak spot during their orbits of our planet could now be exposed to more radiation.

For spacecraft hardware, this radiation could cause more malfunctions, damage, or even blackouts. "The main consequence is for our low-Earth-orbit satellite infrastructure," Finlay said. "These satellites experience higher rates of charged particles when they pass through the weak field region, which can cause problems for the electronics."

Danger to astronauts

People in orbit will also face higher risks from radiation, including a greater chance of DNA damage and of suffering cancer during their lifetimes. "Astronauts will also experience these charged particles, but their times in orbit are shorter than the lifetime of most low-Earth-orbit satellites," Finlay said. (On average, astronauts on the ISS spend about 6 months in low Earth orbit, but satellites typically spend more than 5 years there — about 10 times as long.)

The geomagnetic field is relatively weak compared with more familiar forms of magnetism: Its intensity ranges from about 22,000 to 67,000 nanoteslas. In comparison, a typical refrigerator magnet has an intensity of about 10 million nanoteslas.

In the SAA, the geomagnetic field's intensity is lower than 26,000 nanoteslas. According to the study, the region's area has grown by almost 1% of the area of Earth's surface since 2014. The weakest point in the SAA now measures 22,094 nanoteslas — a decrease of 336 nanoteslas since 2014.

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In the region of strong geomagnetic field over northern Canada, the intensity is greater than 57,000 nanoteslas. The study found that the area has shrunk by 0.65% of the area of Earth's surface, while its strongest spot has fallen to 58,031 nanoteslas, a drop of 801 nanoteslas since 2014. In contrast, a strong field region in Siberia has grown in size, increasing in area by 0.42% of Earth's surface area, with the maximum field intensity increasing by 260 nanoteslas since 2014 to 61,619 nanoteslas today.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: ESA (Data source: Finlay, C.C. et al., 2025))

Scientists have discovered that the weak region in Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic—known as the South Atlantic Anomaly—has expanded by an area nearly half the size of continental Europe since 2014.

(Image credit: ESA (Data source: Finlay, C.C. et al., 2025))

Scientists have discovered that the weak region in Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic—known as the South Atlantic Anomaly—has expanded by an area nearly half the size of continental Europe since 2014.

These changes in the Northern Hemisphere were unexpected, Finlay said. "It is related to the circulation patterns of the liquid metal in the core, but we are not certain of the exact cause," he said.

The study did not, however, find any sign of an impending magnetic field reversal. Earth's magnetic field has already reversed hundreds of times, but "we know from paleomagnetic records that Earth's magnetic field has weakened many times in the past, displaying weak field regions like the South Atlantic Anomaly, without reversing," Finlay said. "We are more likely seeing a decade to century timescale fluctuation in the field."

"Hardened" spacecraft

The heightened danger from solar radiation to satellites and astronauts passing over the SAA could be mitigated by ensuring that spacecraft are "hardened" to withstand it, Finlay said: "Since the weakness is growing, the satellites will experience such effects over a larger area, [so] this should be taken into account when designing future missions."

Geophysicist Hagay Amit of Nantes Université in France, who wasn't involved in the latest study but who has studied the SAA, noted that several scientists have proposed possible reasons for the observed changes in the geomagnetic field, but the actual mechanisms remain unknown. "Overall, [the authors] convincingly demonstrated that continuous high-quality geomagnetic measurements are crucial for providing vital insights into the dynamics in the deep Earth," he told Eos in an email.

This article was originally published on Eos.org. Read the original article.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/earths-magnetic-field-has-a-weak-spot-and-its-getting-bigger-putting-astronauts-and-satellites-at-risk at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

TECHNOLOGY > ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

NEWS | OWEN HUGHES | NOV 13, 2025, 7:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

New 'Dragon Hatchling' AI architecture modeled after the human brain could be a key step toward AGI, researchers claim

Scientists say a new kind of AI could bridge the gap between current systems and machines that learn and think more like us.

(Image credit: imaginima/Getty Images)

Researchers have designed a new type of large language model (LLM) that they propose could bridge the gap between artificial intelligence (AI) and more human-like cognition.

Called "Dragon Hatchling," the model is designed to more accurately simulate how neurons in the brain connect and strengthen through learned experience, according to researchers from AI startup Pathway, which developed the model. They described it as the first model capable of "generalizing over time," meaning it can automatically adjust its own neural wiring in response to new information.

In a study uploaded Sept. 30 to the preprint database arXiv, the team framed the model as a successor to existing architecture that underpins generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. What's more, they suggested the model could provide the "missing link" between today's AI technology and more advanced, brain-inspired models of intelligence.

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"There's a lot of ongoing discussion about specifically reasoning models, synthetic reasoning models today, whether they're able to extend reasoning beyond patterns that they have seen in retaining data, whether they're able to generalize reasoning to more complex reasoning patterns and longer reasoning patterns," Adrian Kosowski, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Pathway, told the SuperDataScience podcast on Oct. 7.

"The evidence is largely inconclusive, with the general 'no' as the answer. Currently, machines don't generalize reasoning as humans do, and this is the big challenge where we believe [the] architectures that we are proposing may make a real difference."

A step towards AGI?

Teaching AI to think like humans is one of the most prized goals in the field. Yet reaching this level of simulated cognition — often referred to as artificial general intelligence (AGI) — remains elusive.

A key challenge is that human thinking is inherently messy. Our thoughts rarely come to us in neat, linear sequences of connected information. Instead, the human brain is more like a chaotic tangle of overlapping thoughts, sensations, emotions and impulses constantly vying for attention.

(Image credit: JESPER KLAUSEN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images)

In recent years, LLMs have taken the AI industry much closer to simulating human-like reasoning. LLMs are typically driven by transformer models (transformers), a type of deep learning framework that enables AI models to make connections between words and ideas during a conversation. Transformers are the "brains" behind generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, enabling them to interact with, and respond to, users with a convincing level of "awareness" (at least, most of the time).

Although transformers are extremely sophisticated, they also mark the edge of existing generative AI capabilities. One reason for this is because they don't learn continuously; once an LLM is trained, the parameters that govern it are locked, meaning any new knowledge needs to be added through retraining or fine-tuning. When an LLM does encounter something new, it simply generates a response based on what it already knows.

Imagine dragon

Dragon Hatchling, on the other hand, is designed to dynamically adapt its understanding beyond its training data. It does this by updating its internal connections in real time as it processes each new input, similar to how neurons strengthen or weaken over time. This could support ongoing learning, the researchers said.

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Unlike typical transformer architectures, which process information sequentially through stacked layers of nodes, Dragon Hatchling's architecture behaves more like a flexible web that reorganizes itself as new information comes to light. Tiny "neuron particles" continuously exchange information and adjust their connections, strengthening some and weakening others.

Over time, new pathways form that help the model retain what it's learned and apply it to future situations, effectively giving it a kind of short-term memory that influences new inputs. Unlike traditional LLMs, however, Dragon Hatchling's memory comes from continual adaptations in its architecture, rather than from stored context in its training data.

In tests, Dragon Hatchling performed similarly to GPT-2 on benchmark language modeling and translation tasks — an impressive feat for a brand-new, prototype architecture, the team noted in the study.

Although the paper has yet to be peer-reviewed, the team hopes the model could serve as a foundational step toward AI systems that learn and adapt autonomously. In theory, that could mean AI models that get smarter the longer they stay online — for better or worse.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/new-dragon-hatchling-ai-architecture-modeled-after-the-human-brain-could-be-a-key-step-toward-agi-researchers-claim at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PLANET EARTH > GEOLOGY

NEWS | SKYLER WARE | NOV 13, 2025, 4:59 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Parts of Arizona are being sucked dry, with areas of land sinking 6 inches per year, satellite data reveals

Groundwater extraction has caused parts of the Willcox Basin to subside by up to 12 feet since the 1950s. New research reveals that some areas sunk by 3 feet in just 4 years.

Cracks have opened up in Arizona's Willcox Basin as the ground loses its ability to store water. (Image credit: Brian Conway)

Satellite data reveals that some areas in Arizona’s Willcox Basin are sinking more than 6 inches (15 centimeters) per year — the fastest rate of subsidence in the state.

This sinking is the result of intensive groundwater extraction to support agriculture in the region, which lowers the water table in the basin, taking the land surface down with it. Past research has shown that since the mid-20th century, parts of the basin have sunk by up to 12 feet (3.6 meters).

The extraction and subsidence have caused wells to run dry and cracks to open up in the ground. The findings were presented Oct. 20 at The Geological Society of America Connects 2025 in San Antonio.

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Groundwater in the basin fills the spaces between dust and dirt particles below the surface. When this groundwater is removed, the spaces it once filled collapse because the sediment can't support its own weight. Once the spaces that used to hold water collapse, the change is permanent, and the basin loses its ability to replenish its groundwater.

"Over time, those pore spaces that were once being held open by water pressure start to collapse," Brian Conway, a geophysicist at the Arizona Department of Water Resources who was not involved in the research, said in a statement. "That causes the overlying surface to sink because of the compaction that's happening in the subsurface."

In the new research, Danielle Smilovsky, a researcher at the Conrad Blucher Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, used a satellite-based technique known as interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) to measure changes to Willcox Basin's surface height between 2017 and 2021. InSAR measures the distance between a satellite orbiting Earth and a point on the planet's surface. After averaging several measurements that have been taken in sequence, scientists can detect small changes in surface elevation over time.

The research revealed that some parts of Arizona sank nearly 3 feet (1 m) during the study period.

Even heavy rains in 2022 and early 2023 weren't enough to stop the sinking. Though higher-than-usual precipitation and snowmelt temporarily boosted groundwater levels in the basin, the land kept sinking. In some areas, it even sped up. This suggests that letting the groundwater naturally recharge is unlikely to keep up with extraction.

Regulating groundwater pumping could slow the sinking in the future. In 2024, policymakers declared Willcox Basin an active management area (AMA), which could limit extraction and preserve the basin's ability to store groundwater. The details of the management plan have not been finalized, but similar plans have helped manage water elsewhere in the state.

"Especially in the Phoenix and Tucson areas, groundwater levels are recovering, and we've seen subsidence rates decrease quite a bit," Conway said in the statement. "In the Tucson area, we're not even seeing subsidence anymore with the groundwater management."

Smilovsky took a more cautious long-term view. "I don't think subsidence will ever stop," she said in the statement. "But an AMA might slow it down a bit."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/parts-of-arizona-are-being-sucked-dry-with-areas-of-land-sinking-6-inches-per-year-satellite-data-reveals at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

November 12, 2025

- 240 million-year-old 'warrior' crocodile ancestor from Pangaea had plated armor — and it looked just like a dinosaur

- Underwater volcano off Oregon coast likely won't erupt until mid-to-late 2026

- Scientists detect monster blast from nearby star powerful enough to rip the atmosphere off a planet

- 'Stranded' astronauts aboard Chinese space station are preparing to come home — but no date has been announced

- Blue Origin New Glenn rocket: New launch window for historic Mars mission after solar storm delay

- Brain benefits of exercise come from the bloodstream — and they may be transferrable, mouse study finds

- Ancient DNA reveals mysterious Indigenous lineage that lived in Argentina for nearly 8,500 years — but rarely interacted with others

- New antivenom works against 17 dangerous African snake species, study suggests

- Exotic 'time crystals' could be used as memory in quantum computers, promising research finds

- James Webb telescope may have found the first stars in the universe, new study claims

- Diagnostic dilemma: A woman's homemade juice led to life-threatening 'toxic squash syndrome'

- Tiny spiders that build giant 'puppet' decoys from disembodied prey discovered in Peru and Philippines

ANIMALS > EXTINCT SPECIES

NEWS | SARAH WILD | NOV 12, 2025, 10:01 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

240 million-year-old 'warrior' crocodile ancestor from Pangaea had plated armor — and it looked just like a dinosaur

The armor-plated lizard is an ancestor of modern crocodiles and lived just before dinosaurs took over Earth.

Artist reconstruction of the crocodile ancestor, Tainrakuasuchus bellator, which lived before the dinosaurs. (Image credit: Caio Fantini)

Researchers have unearthed a giant "warrior" lizard that stalked Brazil 240 million years ago in the Triassic period, just before the dawn of the dinosaurs. The discovery fills in gaps in our understanding of the time before the dinosaurs dominated Earth, and further highlights the links between what is now Africa and South America.

The armor-plated reptile resembles a dinosaur but is actually an ancestor of modern crocodiles. Scientists have called the creature Tainrakuasuchus bellator, which is a mixture of Greek, Latin and Indigenous Brazilian language Guarani, meaning "pointed-tooth warrior crocodile." The team revealed its findings in a study published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology on Nov. 13.

"Its discovery helps illuminate a key moment in the history of life, the period that preceded the rise of the dinosaurs," study lead author Rodrigo Temp Müller, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil, said in a statement.

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During the Triassic (252 million to 201 million years ago), Archosaurs dominated the world of land-based vertebrates — the name means "ruling reptiles" — and is split into two main groups. One group, Ornithosuchia, evolved into birds and dinosaurs, while the other, Pseudosuchia, gave rise to crocodilians, such as modern crocodiles.

Infographic showing size and skeletal structure of T. bellator. (Image credit: By Caio Fantini, Rodrigo Temp Müller, Mauricio Garcia)

T. bellator belongs to Pseudosuchia. It was about 7.9 feet (2.4 meters) long and weighed 130 pounds (60 kilograms). It had a long neck and thin jaw full of sharp teeth. Very few of these types of Pseudosuchia (called poposauroids) have been found in South America, the researchers noted.

The team found the partial skeleton of T. bellator, including the lower jaw, backbone and pelvis, during an excavation in May in the Dona Francisca municipality in Brazil.

The reptile's back was covered in bony plates called osteoderms, which modern crocodiles also have.

"This animal was an active predator, but despite its relatively large size, it was far from the largest hunter of its time, with the same ecosystem home to giants as big as seven meters [23 feet] long," said Müller, who led the team of palaeontologists that excavated T. bellator. "Despite the diversity of pseudosuchians, they remain poorly understood." Fossils of some of their lineages, such as poposauroids, are "extremely rare" in the fossil record, he said.

T. bellator is closely related to another individual discovered in Tanzania, he said. Mandasuchus tanyauchen, discovered in 1933, lived about 245 million years ago, when Africa and South America were both part of the supercontinent Pangea.

"At that time, the continents were still united, which allowed the free dispersal of organisms across regions that are now separated by oceans," Müller said. "As a result, the faunas of Brazil and Africa shared several common elements, reflecting an intertwined evolutionary and ecological history."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/animals/extinct-species/240-million-year-old-warrior-crocodile-ancestor-from-pangaea-had-plated-armor-and-it-looked-just-like-a-dinosaur at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PLANET EARTH > VOLCANOS

NEWS | SASCHA PARE | NOV 12, 2025, 1:42 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Underwater volcano off Oregon coast likely won't erupt until mid-to-late 2026

Researchers thought that Axial Seamount might erupt in 2025, but recent data suggest the underwater volcano could take a bit longer to blow its top.

Axial Seamount is an underwater volcano. Here, we see the base of the seamount's western caldera wall. (Image credit: Original photo courtesy of NOAA)

An underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon could now blow its top by mid-to late-2026, scientists say.

In December last year, scientists said the Axial Seamount was nearing the threshold seen before an eruption a decade earlier and could erupt within a year. Now, they predict the eruption will likely come later than previously expected, by mid-to-late 2026.

Axial Seamount is located on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a divergent plate boundary off the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast. It is the most active submarine volcano in the Northeast Pacific Ocean, with known eruptions in 1998, 2011 and 2015.

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"After successfully forecasting the 2015 eruption at Axial, we've been attempting to forecast the next since then," Bill Chadwick, a research associate at Oregon State University who co-runs a blog about the seamount, told Live Science in an email.

In a presentation to the American Geophysical Union in December 2024, Chadwick and colleagues said that eruptions at Axial Seamount follow a period of high seismicity and steady ground inflation caused by magma rising below the seafloor. The last three eruptions happened at similar — though slightly increasing — levels of inflation, so the volcano would likely erupt again once it reached or exceeded this threshold, they argued.

Following the 2015 eruption, inflation below the seamount started to build again. But the inflation rate gradually declined through 2023, and "by the summer of 2023 the uplift rate was nearly zero," Chadwick noted in the presentation abstract, which he wrote in July 2024.

Then, in the fall of 2023, rates of inflation and seismicity picked up again, indicating "a fundamental change in the magma supply to the volcano," Chadwick wrote in the abstract. "Based on the current trends, and the assumption that Axial will be primed to erupt when it reaches the 2015 inflation threshold, our current eruption forecast window is between now (July 2024) and the end of 2025," he wrote.

By late 2024, Axial had reached 95% of the inflation level that preceded the eruption in 2015.

But by late April 2025, inflation rates had slowed again, and on Oct. 27, Chadwick updated the Axial Blog to say that it was time to revisit the December 2024 forecast. "It will take a bit more time than we anticipated to reach the same inflation threshold that the volcano reached before the last eruption," he wrote. "At the current rate of inflation, we won't get to that higher inflation threshold until mid-to-late 2026."

Axial Seamount sits on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a divergent plate boundary. (Image credit: Bill Chadwick, Oregon State University via Axial Blog)

Axial Seamount is thought to behave similarly to Iceland's Krafla volcano, where the amount of inflation needed for an eruption increases slightly with each eruption, Chadwick told Live Science. The inflation threshold in 2015 was about 12 inches (30 centimeters) higher than it had been in 2011, so scientists assume that a similar increase in uplift might be needed now before another eruption occurs, he said.

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Currently, the ground is 4 inches (10 cm) higher than it was minutes before the 2015 eruption, with potentially another 8 inches (20 cm) to go before the next eruption. "It's really just an educated guess, but also based on the previous behavior of volcanoes like Krafla," Chadwick said.

Inflation at Axial Seamount rises toward thresholds that increase slightly before each eruption. (Image credit: Bill Chadwick, Oregon State University via Axial Blog)

The reason for this increase in inflation with each eruption may be that magma rising to the surface compresses the surrounding crust, making it harder for magma to rise again in the same spot years later, Chadwick said. But inflation thresholds won't increase indefinitely, because the Juan de Fuca Ridge releases compressive stress in the crust as it spreads, he added.

Inflation rates and thresholds are unpredictable, which makes estimating the timing of an eruption difficult. "The forecasting attempts described in the Blog are based on simple pattern recognition in past monitoring and speculation about how that might play out in the future," Chadwick said.

However, a new wave of physics-based models could make the process easier: One model that Chadwick and colleagues have been working on can use previous monitoring data to accurately predict past eruptions, he said.

Starting this week (Nov. 10), the researchers will use this model to analyze real-time data from Axial Seamount and attempt to predict its next eruption, Chadwick said. The results won't be released until after the next eruption, as only that can demonstrate the success or failure of the model, he noted.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/underwater-volcano-off-oregon-coast-likely-wont-erupt-before-mid-to-late-2026 at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY

NEWS | ELIZABETH HOWELL | NOV 12, 2025, 1:36 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Scientists detect monster blast from nearby star powerful enough to rip the atmosphere off a planet

In a small blow to the search for extraterrestrial life, a nearby star shot out a strong enough coronal mass ejection to strip away the atmosphere of any rocky planets that could have been in the way.

An illustration of the XMM-Newton satellite studying a monster stellar explosion (Image credit: D. Ducros; ESA/XMM-Newton, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

A powerful blast spotted from a dwarf star was strong enough to strip away the atmosphere of any Earth-like planets that might have been lurking close by, new research suggests.

The study, published Wednesday (Nov. 12) in the journal Nature, was the first to confirm a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a massive, high-speed blast of plasma — from a star besides the sun. As scientists search for habitable worlds, understanding how strongly and frequently stars erupt will be essential to figuring out where to center our search, the study's authors argue.

A fast CME is visible in a "type II radio burst," which occurs due to the shock wave a CME creates as it moves from a star's atmosphere into interplanetary space. That burst in radio waves was spotted in a star 40 light-years from Earth, which is about 10 times farther from us than the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. While extrasolar CMEs have been proposed before, this is the first type II radio burst definitively detected coming from another star, making it the most convincing detecting yet.

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The star, called StKM 1-1262, is an M dwarf. Statistically, M dwarfs are smaller than the sun and far more active, meaning they send off more solar flares and CMEs. M dwarfs are nevertheless popular targets for life searches, because they are common in our universe. It's also easier to spot planets around these stars; because M dwarf are so small, planets tend to form much closer to them (and are therefore easier to detect) than those around larger sun-like stars.

But there's a caveat: Because M dwarfs are more active, and the "Goldilocks zone" where water could exist on a theoretical rocky planet's surface is closer to the dimmer star than Earth is to the sun, any Earth 2.0 would likely be more exposed to more CMEs than we experience with the sun.

"One of the problems could be [that] these CMEs happen so regularly, and they're hitting the planets so regularly, that they strip the atmosphere," lead study author Joe Callingham, a radio astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, told Live Science in an interview. "So, great — you're in the Goldilocks zone, but you've got no help here, because the stellar activity destroyed [the chances for life].”

An atmosphere-shredding storm

The researchers spotted the initial burst in radio waves with the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope — a European network of antennas located primarily in the Netherlands — and assisted by new data processing methods from co-authors at the Paris Observatory. LOFAR is the most sensitive radio telescope ever built, Callingham noted, adding that the algorithms allowed the researchers to "get lucky" in finding the small burst of light in the sky.

Follow-up observations with the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space telescope showed the star's temperature, confirming that it is an M dwarf, along with its rotation (20 times faster than the sun) and its brightness in X-rays.

The rotation and brightness revealed the motion of the CME, which was moving at nearly 1,500 miles per second (2,400 kilometers per second) — a speed seen in only 5% of similar bursts happening on the sun. The combined telescope observations also showed that the CME is moving fast enough, and with enough density, to blow away atmospheres of any planets in a close orbit with the star.

While LOFAR is powerful, Callingham said the challenge is that this observation (paired with the new data processing techniques) is approaching the telescope's resolution limit. To see more extrasolar CMEs, the research team is looking forward to science operations of the Square Kilometer Array, an enormous radio telescope project being built in Australia and South Africa, in the 2030s.

Callingham said the Square Kilometer Array should be able to spot "tens to hundreds" of extrasolar CMEs within the first year, which would allow the team to better chart how often an atmospheric-stripping blow would occur and how CMEs vary by types of star.

"It's so impactful," he said of the search, "because we really are, as astronomers, trying to find a habitable planet. … It's one of the key goals of astronomy over the next, I would hope, decade. But maybe it's going to take longer, or maybe the rest of my life, to find Earth 2.0."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/scientists-detect-monster-blast-from-nearby-star-powerful-enough-to-rip-the-atmosphere-off-a-planet at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > SPACE EXPLORATION

NEWS | BEN TURNER | NOV 12, 2025, 12:19 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

'Stranded' astronauts aboard Chinese space station are preparing to come home — but no date has been announced

Three astronauts remain stuck on China's Tiangong space station after errant debris struck their return capsule last week. But their return vessel has already arrived, meaning a flight home will come sooner rather than later.

China's Tiangong space station. (Image credit: China Manned Space Agency)

China is preparing to rescue three astronauts stranded inside the Tiangong space station, officials announced Tuesday (Nov. 11).

The astronauts Wang Jie, Chen Zhongrui and Chen Don, were forced to extend their stay aboard the space station after what's thought to be space junk struck their return capsule last week.

Now, representatives of the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) say the astronauts are well and working normally while engineers perform tests on the backup capsule that will be used to ferry them back to Earth, according to an agency statement.

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The agency has not announced a date for the Shenzhou-20 teams' return, but the crew is already carrying out tests and drills, according to the CSMA.

The replacement craft, which was crewed by the Shenzhou-21 team, docked with the Tiangong station on Nov. 1.

The work is progressing steadily and "according to plan," agency officials wrote in a translated statement. "The Shenzhou-20 astronaut crew is working and living normally and is conducting in-orbit scientific experiments together with the Shenzhou-21 astronaut crew."

China's Tiangong, or "heavenly palace" space station is 180 feet (55 meters) long and consists of three modules, making it around half the length and one-fifth the size of the 358-foot-long (109 m) International Space Station and its 16 modules.

The space station usually holds a crew of three astronauts rotated across six-month stays. With the Shenzhou-21 crew also now aboard, the astronauts in the station will be more cramped than usual. But they won't necessarily be uncomfortable — the station is designed to hold two crews.

The unexpected extension of the Shenzou-20 crew's stay does have one upside. Commander Chen Dong, who has 416 nonconsecutive days in space and counting, already holds the record for most cumulative days in space by a Chinese astronaut. The unexpectedly long stay will increase his record.

The astronauts' ordeal is reminiscent of an earlier stranding of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The duo splashed down into the Gulf of Mexico with 286 space days on the clock after their week-long mission stretched out into nine months after their Boeing Starliner capsule malfunctioned.

The two closely-spaced stranding events were described by one expert as a "wake up call" for space rescue, according to Space.com. That's because, as an ever-increasing number of spacecraft and satellites populate Earth's skies, the space junk orbiting our planet does too — making events like this one ever more likely.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/stranded-astronauts-aboard-chinese-space-station-are-preparing-to-come-home-but-no-date-has-been-announced at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > SPACE EXPLORATION

NEWS | ELIZABETH HOWELL | NOV 12, 2025, 12:01 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Blue Origin New Glenn rocket: New launch window for historic Mars mission after solar storm delay

Twin Mars spacecraft were due to launch on Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on Nov. 12, but an active sun prompted NASA to delay its mission until Thursday (Nov. 13).

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket sits on the launch pad, shortly before being delayed by weather on Earth and in space. (Image credit: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo via Getty Images)

UPDATE: Earlier Blue Origin posted on X that the launch has been rescheduled for this afternoon (Nov. 13), with a launch window between 2:57 p.m. to 4:25 p.m. EST. Be sure to check the live blog for the latest.

NG-2 Update: We are scheduled to launch tomorrow, November 13, with a launch window from 2:57–4:25 PM EST / 19:57–21:25 UTC. The live webcast starts here at T-20 minutes. pic.twitter.com/Dp9uqykdzANovember 13, 2025

While people around the world are getting auroral treats from an active sun, the recent solar activity has caused disappointment for Mars-mission fans. Due to the adverse space weather, they will now have to wait to see two Red Planet-bound spacecraft launch aboard a Blue Origin rocket.

NASA's twin ESCAPADE spacecraft were supposed to fly to Mars as soon as this afternoon (Nov. 12), but strong solar activity means the mission will have to wait until an indeterminate date, Blue Origin officials said in a post on the social platform X. The mission has already been delayed several times from an expected October 2024 liftoff date due to technical and scheduling issues, and a recent launch attempt on Nov. 9 was stood down due to the weather on Earth.

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"Due to highly elevated solar activity and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA is postponing launch until space weather conditions improve," Blue Origin officials wrote. "We are currently assessing opportunities to establish our next launch window based on forecasted space weather and range availability."

ESCAPADE — short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers — is a mission managed by NASA that uses two spacecraft built by California-based aerospace company Rocket Lab. The spacecraft will fly aboard the 321-foot-tall (98 meters) Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which is designed for orbital and interplanetary missions like this Mars effort.

Ironically, ESCAPADE is designed to study the very same space weather that is delaying it. The sun has an 11-year cycle of solar activity and is at the peak in 2025. As the sun releases large, fast-moving clouds of plasma known as coronal mass ejections, this electrically charged material triggers auroras when the particles interact with Earth's magnetic field lines and atmosphere. Severe solar storms can also affect satellites and power lines, which is why NASA and other groups are eager to keep an eye on the sky.

ESCAPADE will examine how this space weather as well as solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles the sun sends through the solar system — previously stripped Mars of the thicker atmosphere the Red Planet had in its ancient past. Scientists believe that as the atmosphere thinned, flowing water on the surface dried up, leaving Mars as a largely desert world aside from ice at the poles and suspected reserves of water underground.

The nearly $80 million ESCAPADE isn't the only payload aboard New Glenn. Within the rocket's second stage is a telemetry communications experiment for Viasat flying on behalf of NASA's Communications Services Project, Blue Origin officials said in a report from Live Science’s sister website Space.com.

New Glenn has only been used in one mission so far — during the NG-1 mission in January. Its first stage is designed to land on a barge in the ocean so it can be reused. However, during the January mission, it failed to land on its barge and was lost.

Blue Origin also eventually plans to use New Glenn for moon exploration, bringing both humans and scientific equipment to the lunar surface aboard its yet-to-be flown Blue Moon lander.

Rival aerospace company SpaceX is, for now, tasked with the first human landing of NASA's Artemis moon program, which may happen aboard the company’s Starship as soon as 2027. But delays in Starship's development recently prompted acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy to suggest he may reopen the Artemis 3 contract to Blue Origin and other companies.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/severe-solar-outbursts-delay-launch-of-historic-mars-mission-aboard-blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

HEALTH > EXERCISE

NEWS | ANIRBAN MUKHOPADHYAY | NOV 12, 2025, 12:00 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Brain benefits of exercise come from the bloodstream — and they may be transferrable, mouse study finds

Exercise strengthens both the body and the mind, and researchers are uncovering the molecular messengers that make the connection. The messengers can also be transferred from an active mouse to a sedentary one.

Exercise benefits brain health, likely through "bubbles" of substances carried through the bloodstream. (Image credit: Mary Swift/Getty Images)

Exercise has big benefits for the brain, but the exact reasons why have been mysterious. Now, new studies suggest that exercised muscles release brain-boosting substances into the blood — and at least in lab animals, that boost can be transferred from one individual to another via an injection of those substances.

Previously, common explanations for why regular physical activity is good for the brain pointed to better blood flow, less stress and a stronger heart. But those ideas didn't fully explain how movement directly affected neurons.

Clues are emerging from animal research. In a study published in October in the journal Brain Research, one group of young adult mice ran freely on wheels for four weeks while others stayed sedentary. Scientists then isolated extracellular vesicles — molecular "packages" that carry proteins and genetic material — from the runners' blood and injected them into the sedentary mice.

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After getting these injections twice a week for four weeks, these treated sedentary mice grew about 50% more new brain cells in a memory-related region called the hippocampus, compared with untreated sedentary mice. Most of the new cells developed into mature neurons, a process known as neurogenesis. (For humans, there's ongoing debate around whether neurogenesis occurs in meaningful amounts in the adult brain.)

First study author Meghan Connolly, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta, told Live Science in an email that she was struck by how specific the effect was — vesicles isolated from running mice boosted neuron growth, while those from sedentary animals did not. The researchers don't yet know whether the vesicles entered the brain or acted indirectly through other bodily signals. But Connolly explained that the vesicles themselves carried many proteins linked to antioxidant defenses and neurogenesis.

Notably, this surge in new brain cells may matter only if those cells survive long enough to fully integrate into the brain's existing structure, said Paul Lucassen, a neuroscientist at the University of Amsterdam who was not part of the study. The study zoomed in on "newborn neurons that still need weeks to grow and wire themselves into the brain's existing circuits," he told Live Science in an email. "Only when they find their place in the network can they help shape learning and memory."

Connolly said the next step is to test whether these vesicles can restore neurogenesis and improve memory in laboratory models of brain diseases — avenues that some researchers are already exploring.

In another study, published earlier this year in the journal iScience, scientists used a well-established mouse model of Alzheimer's disease (AD). In AD, neurons malfunction and die off over time in part due to a buildup of abnormal proteins, including amyloid and tau. In the experiment, one set of mice ran voluntarily on wheels for six months while another group was sedentary; the active mice showed less amyloid buildup in the cortex and better metabolism and memory than their counterparts.

In another part of that study, the researchers gave vesicles from mice that had just exercised to sedentary Alzheimer's-model animals. The vesicles, delivered through the nose, reproduced the metabolic benefits but didn't improve memory or clearly reduce amyloid levels, they found.

Mark Febbraio, a professor at Monash University and a member of the research team, explained that the intranasal delivery method may have affected memory outcomes because it requires light anesthesia. He told Live Science in an email that his group is now running follow-up experiments with human participants, comparing vesicles heading to and from the brain during exercise. Preliminary results hint that the vesicles heading toward the brain may be enriched for proteins affecting cognition.

But vesicles may be only one piece of this puzzle. Other recent studies in humans suggest that regular exercise likely helps the brain via multiple biological pathways. As Joram Mul, an exercise neurobiologist at the University of Amsterdam, put it, exercise stirs the entire body — muscles, nerves, and even gut microbes — into motion.

"It's a whole-body effect," Mul said, "not a single factor explaining all, but a symphony of multiple factors and processes," playing in perfect harmony.

Brain quiz: Test your knowledge of the most complex organ in the body

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/health/exercise/brain-benefits-of-exercise-come-from-the-bloodstream-and-they-may-be-transferrable-mouse-study-finds at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

ARCHAEOLOGY

NEWS | KRISTINA KILLGROVE | NOV 12, 2025, 9:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Ancient DNA reveals mysterious Indigenous lineage that lived in Argentina for nearly 8,500 years — but rarely interacted with others

A previously unknown Indigenous population lived in central Argentina for nearly 8,500 years, a new genetic study finds.

A series of fishtail projectile points found in Argentina and Chile. (Image credit: KehDon via Wikimedia Commons; CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Ancient DNA has revealed a mysterious Indigenous group that lived in central Argentina for nearly 8,500 years, a new genetic study reports.

Although the people of this newfound "deep lineage" lived at the same time as two other Indigenous lineages in central Argentina, they barely mixed with others in the area, the researchers found.

In the study, published Nov. 5 in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed 238 genomes from ancient skeletons of people who lived as long as 10,000 years ago in what is now Argentina. While previous studies had shown that there were distinct populations in the central Andes, the Amazon and Patagonia, little research had been done on the people who lived in the geographical area in between those groups: central Argentina.

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"Our big question was: Given its location in the middle of these three populations, were people here a mix of these ancestries, or not?" study co-author Rodrigo Nores, a geneticist at the National University of Córdoba in Argentina, told Science magazine.

Considering the well-documented and rapid spread of ancient people throughout South America — which can be seen in archaeological evidence such as "fishtail" stone projectile points distributed throughout the Southern Cone (the region encompassing Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) — the long-standing assumption was that ancient genomes would provide another line of evidence for how people migrated throughout South America.

But the research team's genomic study of archaeological skeletons revealed a "deep genetic lineage" that persisted for more than 8,000 years in central Argentina — until at least A.D. 1800 — without any significant interaction with the groups surrounding it. While the archaeo-genetic trail ends about 200 years ago, the researchers picked up some clues in the DNA of modern Argentinians. The mystery lineage appears to be the main Indigenous American lineage in the region up to the present day, the researchers wrote in the study.

Given that there are no geographical borders in central Argentina that would have kept people from migrating and interacting with others outside the area, it's unclear why the people in this genetic group kept to themselves. And it's especially surprising considering that, over millennia, central Argentina faced lengthy droughts, a switch from hunting and gathering to agricultural production, and the spread of Amazonian people into their area — all events that typically lead to population turnover.

Although there were myriad languages in central Argentina in the historic era, the similar genetic background of the mystery lineage persisted, meaning linguistic differences did not align with biological differences, the researchers noted in the study. Put another way, the people of this newfound lineage likely spoke many languages.

While the new study is not the final word on the genetic history of Argentina, the researchers wrote that "the genetic structure revealed here provides a basis for correlation to archaeology and enriches our understanding of an important world region."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-dna-reveals-mysterious-indigenous-lineage-that-lived-in-argentina-for-nearly-8-500-years-but-rarely-interacted-with-others at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

HEALTH > MEDICINE & DRUGS

NEWS | SAYAN TRIBEDI | NOV 12, 2025, 8:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

New antivenom works against 17 dangerous African snake species, study suggests

Scientists have developed a nanobody-based antivenom that neutralizes toxins from most African cobras, mambas and the rinkhals, which could offer safer, scalable protection beyond existing snakebite treatments.

A new antivenom could neutralize toxins from snakes like the black-necked spitting cobra above. (Image credit: Image Source Limited via Alamy)

More than 300,000 snakebite cases occur in Africa annually, resulting in at least 7,000 deaths, as well as numerous amputations and injuries. Now, scientists have invented a new nanobody-based antivenom that shows promise against 17 dangerous African snake species.

Until now, the mainstays of treatment have been antivenoms created by exposing horses to particular venoms and then isolating protective antibodies from the animals' blood. These traditional antivenoms can occasionally cause allergic reactions in patients, and they are effective against only one or a few of related snake species.

Now, in a study published in October in the journal Nature, scientists report creating an antivenom that targets most of Africa's deadliest elapids, meaning cobras, mambas, and the rinkhals, also called ring-necked spitting cobras. Instead of horse serum, the antivenom uses eight engineered nanobodies that are essentially tiny antibody fragments designed to block key toxins in the snakes' venoms.

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Juan Calvete, director of the Evolutionary and Translational Venomics Laboratory at the Biomedicine Institute of Valencia, who was not involved in the study, said the new nanobody-based antivenom is "a remarkable advance in the development of synthetic antivenoms." However, he noted that in its current form, the antivenom may be expensive to make, and thus challenging to use in poorer regions.

To create the new antivenom, researchers exposed an alpaca and a llama to venoms from 18 African snakes, including cobras, mambas, and the rinkhals. These snakes' venoms are potent and can cause serious problems, such as paralysis and tissue damage, and they also contain a diverse range of toxins.

The llama and alpaca exposed to the venoms produced special, tiny antibodies, known as nanobodies. The compact size of these nanobodies enables them to diffuse quickly through tissues and bind toxins at hard-to-reach sites in the body, the study authors noted.

The researchers collected the animals' blood and used a technique to find nanobodies that stick well to various venom toxins. The nanobodies that latched on most effectively were then made in the lab and tested for their ability to block the venoms' effects. Finally, eight of these engineered nanobodies were combined into a powerful mix to create the new antivenom.

In lab tests in mice, this nanobody serum prevented death from 17 of the 18 target snake venoms; the venom of the eastern green mamba (Dendroaspis angusticeps) was the only one not fully neutralized. Further analyses suggested that the antivenom neutralized seven toxin families found within the venoms and that it reduced tissue damage from venoms known to kill cells.

The antivenom outperformed a commonly used antivenom designed to target multiple toxins: Mice given the nanobody mix survived multiple venoms with fewer symptoms than did mice treated with the traditional horse-antibody-based serum.

"The main advance of our work is showing that an effective recombinant antivenom can be made with a surprisingly small number of nanobodies that outperform existing ones," senior study author Andreas Hougaard Laustsen-Kiel, a biotechnologist at the Technical University of Denmark, told Live Science in an email. The new antivenom was better at preventing both lethal effects and tissue damage, and it could theoretically be "produced at large scale in bioreactors, independent of snakes and horses," he said.

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The next steps include testing the antivenom's effects in larger animals to estimate what dose a human might need and optimize the process to scale up production. "We are also testing some of these nanobodies, and new ones, against Asian cobra venoms to develop cocktails with broader species coverage and geographical relevance," Laustsen-Kiel said.

The idea of a broad-spectrum — or even "universal" — antivenom has recently gained traction. A notable 2025 study published in the journal Cell used human antibodies from a snakebite survivor to protect mice from multiple cobra and mamba venoms. Yet practical and economic barriers remain to developing such an antivenom and manufacturing it affordably and scalably.

Calvete called the new nanobody venom a significant advance, but he cautioned that dosing requirements in humans might complicate things. "A therapeutic dose to treat envenomings from all target snakes could require up to 50 grams of nanobodies," he suggested. (That said, tests to officially determine human dosing have yet to be conducted.)

He added that improving the pharmacokinetics of the antivenom — that is, how the treatment interacts with the human body — would likely increase production costs beyond what was seen in this proof-of-concept study. "The most powerful of all the 'omics' — economics — may once again represent an insurmountable obstacle to fighting the most neglected of tropical diseases," he concluded.

In theory, the new nanobody mixture could represent a promising step toward safer, scalable snakebite therapies, but further testing, manufacturing optimization, and regulatory validation will be crucial to getting it into human patients.

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/health/medicine-drugs/new-antivenom-works-against-17-dangerous-african-snake-species-study-suggests at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

TECHNOLOGY > COMPUTING

NEWS | ANNA DEMMING | NOV 12, 2025, 7:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Exotic 'time crystals' could be used as memory in quantum computers, promising research finds

Experiments show that a time crystal based on magnons can interact with mechanical waves without being destroyed.

(Image credit: Mikko Raskinen/Aalto University.)

Time crystals could help create quantum computing data storage that lasts minutes, new research shows — a huge improvement on the milliseconds-long duration of existing quantum data storage.

In the new research, scientists ran experiments on how time crystals interact with mechanical waves. Although time crystals are widely considered extremely fragile, the researchers showed that they could couple the time crystal to a mechanical surface wave without it being destroyed.

"This is for me the most interesting part," study co-author Jere Mäkinen, an academy research fellow at Aalto University in Finland, told Live Science. "It is that you can really couple time crystals in a significant way to another system and harness the inherent robustness of time crystals."

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The researchers described their findings in a study published Oct. 16 in the journal Nature Communications.

Making waves in time crystal research

Traditional crystalline structures have a regular arrangement of atoms or molecules in space, but time crystals return to a certain state after regular periods of time. This is not the same as a pendulum, for instance, where the swinging frequency merely reflects the frequency of the oscillating downward force as the gravitational pull vies with the changing orientation of the tension. In the case of a time crystal, although in practice some initial prompt into action is required, the periodicity is acquired spontaneously, without anything driving it at that frequency.

Since they were first proposed in 2012, various setups that act as time crystals have been reported. Mäkinen and his collaborators based theirs on quasiparticles called magnons — collective waves in the value of a quantum property known as spin. They created magnons in "superfluid helium-3," helium where the nuclei have two protons and just one neutron so that the spins of the particles in the nucleus cannot cancel out.

They cooled the helium 3 to cryogenic temperatures so that the dynamics of the atoms cause them to effectively attract each other, albeit weakly, and they reorganize into quasiparticles known as Cooper pairs. As Cooper pairs, these quasiparticles are limited to just one available quantum state, which thus eliminates the fluid viscosity.

(Image credit: asbe/GettyImages)

It turns out that sloshing the superfluid helium 3 to and fro with a mechanical surface wave has an interesting effect on it that boils down to the influence of the surface on the spin and orbital angular momentum of the Cooper pairs, which are the properties used to characterize the superfluid. To picture this, think of the influence of a wall on the possible orbits of a ball spun at the end of a string: in free space, the ball orbitals can take on any orientation in three dimensions, but take it close to a wall and some of these orbitals are no longer possible.

Mäkinen and his collaborators recognized that this would influence the period of the magnon time crystal. In their experiments, they found that the time crystal could survive the interaction for up to a few minutes. This suggests that it may be possible to couple data from quantum computers to the time crystal through a similar interaction for storage.

In quantum computers, each qubit can be in a superposition of two binary states at once, which is the basis for theoretically higher processing power. Memory in quantum computers, therefore, must store data that preserves this indefinite quality of the qubit state.

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Memory technologies in today's quantum computers commonly use the orientation of spin to store data, but these spin states are easily upset by environmental disturbances such as thermal noise. These disturbances nudge them into one or the other possible state, meaning the quantum nature of the data being stored is lost. As such, spin quantum memory only lasts a few milliseconds.

In contrast, the magnons that Mäkinen and his collaborators created lasted minutes, even with the disturbance of the mechanical surface wave. Since the surface wave leaves an imprint on the magnon time crystal frequency, it can be used to "write" the quantum data to be stored. With longer quantum memory, more quantum processing operations can be implemented on the data before it deteriorates, allowing for more complex tasks.

Textbook analogies

After looking at the experimental data, the team also found several similarities to optomechanics, where light and mechanical resonators interact. An example is the barely perceptible impact of a photon hitting a mirror attached to a spring, where the spring gains or loses energy as the photon bounces off the mirror.

Drawing parallels between time crystals and optomechanics could reveal theory from the well-established field of optomechanics that can apply to time crystals subject to a mechanical wave, providing a head start in understanding these interactions.

"Optomechanics is such a general theme in many fields of physics, so you can use it in a huge variety of different systems," Mäkinen said.

Nikolay Zheludev, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Southampton who also studies time crystals and optomechanics but was not involved in the study, described the study as "interesting.", "It opens a direction of research in the physics of nonequilibrium systems with potential implications for advancing quantum sensing and quantum control," he told Live Science in an email.

Mäkinen said he is keen to explore different types of setups to couple mechanically to the time crystal, such as with a nanofabricated electromechanical resonator, which would have a much lower mass than the superfluid surface wave. "The obvious idea is to really go towards the quantum limit and see how far we can push it," he said.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/exotic-time-crystals-could-be-used-as-memory-in-quantum-computers-promising-research-finds at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > COSMOLOGY

NEWS | ELIZABETH HOWELL | NOV 12, 2025, 6:30 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

James Webb telescope may have found the first stars in the universe, new study claims

The James Webb Space Telescope may have discovered Population III stars, the universe's first generation of stars. They may tell us more about how galaxies form.

A composite view of the galaxy cluster MACS J0416 taken with the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Deep behind this cluster, some of the universe’s earliest stars may lurk, new JWST observations hint. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Jose Diego (IFCA), Jordan D'Silva (UWA), Anton Koekemoer (STScI), Jake Summers (ASU), Rogier Windhorst (ASU), Haojing Yan (University of Missouri))

Astronomers using the James Webb telescope may have discovered some of the universe's first stars, and they may offer clues to how galaxies form. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and a phenomenon first predicted by Albert Einstein, the scientists spotted the early stars, known as Population III stars, in a distant cluster called LAP1-B, located 13 billion light-years from Earth. They described their results Oct. 27 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Population III stars, sometimes called dark stars, are theorized to be some of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago. According to this theory, hydrogen and helium combined with dark matter, creating gargantuan stars a million times the mass of the sun and a billion times as bright as our star.

There are several reasons the team suspects the stars spotted by JWST are Population III, lead study author Eli Visbal, an associate professor and astrophysicist at the University of Toledo in Ohio, told Live Science in an email.

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For example, the stars' spectra, which show their composition based on the light they absorb and emit, had emission lines suggesting lots of high-energy photons, which is consistent with Population III predictions. The spectra also suggested the stars are very large — each on the order of 100 solar masses — and the mass of the stars met some theoretical calculations.

"If indeed Pop III, this is the first detection of these primordial stars," Visbal told Live Science.

However, JWST was suspected to have seen Population III stars before, the team noted in the study. For example, peer-reviewed research in March 2024 suggested that the telescope had spotted some in the galaxy GN-z11 that formed only 430 million years after the universe itself.

The new study argues, however, that the detection of LAP1-B is the only one that fits three theoretical conditions for Population III stars: It formed in a low-metallicity (hydrogen and helium) environment with a temperature suitable to host star formation; the stars formed in low-mass clusters with only a few very large stars present; and the cluster meets mathematical conditions for the initial mass function, or how star masses were distributed among a population when they formed.

Another view of MACS J0416 taken with Hubble. The long streaks of colorful light show the effects of gravitational lensing — with the massive gravity of the foreground cluster warping and magnifying the light of distant objects behind it. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, and L. Infante (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile))

JWST was essential for the observations because its 6.5-meter (21 feet) mirror allows it to catch faint objects at incredible distances, Visbal said. But what helped LAP1-B pop into view was a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, which happens when a very massive object, such as a galaxy, bends space-time around it while a background object is in just the right spot. As light from the distant background object passes through the "warp" created by the foreground object, the background light is distorted into rings or arcs. This phenomenon is sometimes called an Einstein ring, as it confirms what Einstein suggested would happen more than a century ago.

In this case, LAP1-B became visible when a closer galaxy cluster, called MACS J0416, passed in front of it and "lensed” the light of LAP1-B.

JWST also allowed for observations of the emission lines from the stars, which were initially emitted in ultraviolet wavelengths but then stretched into infrared wavelengths due to the expansion of the universe, Visbal said. JWST is optimized for infrared observations, allowing the stars to be visible.

Aside from the novelty of the star finding, LAP1-B helps showcase how galaxies evolved, Visbal said. Because Population III stars are expected to form in small dark matter structures that also were building blocks for larger galaxies, "they teach us about the earliest stages of galaxy formation and evolution — for example, how metals pollute the initially pristine hydrogen and helium gas."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/cosmology/james-webb-telescope-may-have-found-the-universes-first-generation-of-stars at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

HEALTH > FOOD & DIET

FEATURES | NICOLETTA LANESE | NOV 12, 2025, 6:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Diagnostic dilemma: A woman's homemade juice led to life-threatening 'toxic squash syndrome'

In the first reported case of its kind in Canada, a woman fell violently ill after consuming the juice of a bitter gourd.

In rare cases, vegetables in the same family as calabash can accumulate harmful compounds as they ripen. (Image credit: Catherine McQueen via Getty Images)

The patient: A 64-year-old woman in Canada

The symptoms: Paramedics brought the patient to the emergency department after she developed sudden weakness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and lower abdominal pain.

What happened next: The woman told doctors she'd developed the symptoms minutes after consuming two cups of homemade juice made from pureed calabash (Lagenaria siceraria), also known as bottle gourd. She said she'd made and drunk juice from store-bought calabash every day for years, according to a report of the case. However, on this occasion, she noted that it tasted "abnormally bitter," rather than having its more typical mild squash flavor.

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Tests revealed that the woman's heart rate and breathing rate were high, and her blood pressure was initially high and then fell concerningly low. Her extremities were also unusually cool to the touch, indicating she had poor circulation. Meanwhile, one of the chambers of her heart was pumping very forcefully, and an echocardiogram suggested she was having other heart issues.

The medical team restored the woman's blood pressure to normal levels by giving her intravenous fluids, but she still subsequently had several episodes of "profound" low pressure. She also continued to experience diarrhea and vomited blood several times.

She was then transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU), where doctors examined her gastrointestinal tract via gastroscopy, in which a thin tube with a camera in it is inserted into the mouth and guided into the throat and stomach. They found that her stomach lining was inflamed and bleeding as a result of tissue damage, which was likely caused by poor oxygen delivery to the tissue.

The diagnosis: The patient was diagnosed with shock, a life-threatening condition in which blood flow starkly declines and ultimately injures organs. In this case, the shock stemmed from toxins in the squash juice. This "bitter bottle gourd poisoning" is a type of "toxic squash syndrome," which is caused by eating toxic substances sometimes found in squashes and gourds.

Calabash is specifically a "cucurbit," meaning it belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family that includes cucumbers, pumpkins, watermelon and zucchini. Cucurbits produce bitter-tasting chemicals called cucurbitacins, which can have toxic effects if consumed in large enough quantities. Domesticated varieties of these plants have been bred to contain minimal quantities of cucurbitacins so that they're both palatable and safe for humans to eat. But in some cases, cucurbits may accumulate these chemicals as they ripen, posing a rare risk to people who consume them.

"If ingested, cucurbitacin is toxic to humans by various purported albeit uncertain mechanisms," the report authors noted. The toxin is thought to disrupt signaling in cells and make blood vessels more permeable, and it ultimately injures mucous membranes in the body, especially in the digestive tract.

"It is suspected that the gourd’s degree of bitterness correlates with its cucurbitacin concentration and thus toxicity; however, this is not definitively supported in the literature," the authors added.

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The treatment: There is no specific antidote to bitter-gourd poisoning, so the medical team continued to monitor the patient's vital signs and stabilize them as needed. Her shock and associated symptoms went away after she'd spent five days in the ICU.

The patient was then discharged, and on a follow-up call, she reported sudden and progressive hair loss that set in about two weeks after she'd been admitted to the hospital. The doctors noted that this is another likely symptom of "bitter bottle gourd poisoning and further supported this diagnosis." Hair loss has been reported in other cases of the syndrome.

What makes the case unique: Toxic squash syndrome is considered very rare, and this was the first such case ever reported in Canada. Similar cases had previously been reported in other countries, such as India, where calabash juice is used in some forms of traditional medicine.

For more intriguing medical cases, check out our Diagnostic Dilemma archives.

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/health/food-diet/diagnostic-dilemma-a-womans-homemade-juice-led-to-life-threatening-toxic-squash-syndrome at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

ANIMALS > ARACHNIDS > SPIDERS

NEWS | SASCHA PARE | NOV 12, 2025, 5:18 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Tiny spiders that build giant 'puppet' decoys from disembodied prey discovered in Peru and Philippines

Researchers have documented the strange antics of two tropical spider species that build giant, arachnid-shaped decoys out of silk, plant matter and prey remains in their webs.

Tropical spiders in the genus Cyclosa build fake "spiders" out of debris to scare off predators. (Image credit: Richard Kirby)

Tiny tropical spiders in the Philippines and the Peruvian Amazon build giant, arachnid-like decoys in their webs to scare off predators, new research shows.

The outsize fake spiders are made of silk; plant debris; and dead, disembodied prey. Some decoys look rudimentary, but others accurately imitate the shape of a spider, according to a study published Nov. 6 in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

The builders of these decoy spiders are the orb weavers Cyclosa inca and Cyclosa longicauda, which measure just 0.1 inch (2.5 millimeters) long. Their spiderwebs are classic wheel shapes made of silk, but inside them lie important clues about spider survival strategies in a world filled with predators.

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Spider Art or Survival? 🕷️ The Mystery of Cyclosa's Fake Spiders | Video Abstract - YouTube

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"They don't just decorate their webs — they meticulously arrange detritus, prey carcasses and silk into a structure that's not only larger than their own body, but clearly resembles the silhouette of a bigger, menacing spider," study lead author George Olah, a conservation geneticist at the Australian National University, said in a statement.

Unlike other orb weavers that build silken tubes to hide inside in their webs, the two Cyclosa spiders invest their time, energy and resources into crafting these decoys. This means the fakes are more than a quirky biological observation, study co-author Lawrence Reeves, an assistant professor at the University of Florida's Medical Entomology Laboratory, said in the statement.

"It illustrates a fundamental evolutionary trade-off in the spider world," Reeves said.

Researchers have known about Cyclosa spiders' strange antics for some time, but the new study is the first time the decoy-building behavior has been formally documented and interpreted.

The spiders turn their webs into "theaters of deception" to stave off would-be attackers, Olah said.

The decoys likely intimidate birds, lizards and other natural predators, prompting them to stay away. They may also provide camouflage for the small Cyclosa spiders, which have the same coloration as their creations and can therefore hide among the plant matter and prey remains.

The researchers documented various examples of fake spider decoys in Cyclosa webs. (Image credit: Olah et al. 2025, Ecology and Evolution (CC BY 4.0))

The decoys may be as effective in defending Cyclosa spiders against predators as the retreats other orb weavers build, explaining why the spiders invest their energy into making them, according to the study. When predators approach the webs, Cyclosa spiders concealed within the decoys shake their abdomen to create vibrations in the fake spiders that make them seem alive.

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The spiders do this day and night, the researchers wrote in the study. "When further approached, the spider jumped off from the web to the ground," they noted of a handful of observations in the Peruvian Amazon in 2022, adding that arachnids returned to their webs once the perceived threat was gone.

The decoys may also provide safe places for Cyclosa spiders to lay their eggs, Juan Carlos Yatto, a nature guide in Peru's Tambopata National Reserve who worked with the study's authors, said in a video. The spiders move the contents of their webs to new locations by building a single thread, along which they transport their eggs and all the debris and body parts used for their decoy. In this scenario, the disassembled decoy can camouflage the eggs during relocation, Yatto said.

Other benefits of building decoys could be that they attract prey and strengthen spiderwebs against adverse weather, the researchers wrote in the study. Further research is needed to understand these different advantages, Olah said.

Cyclosa spiders and their strangely decorated webs are featured in the documentary series "The Secret Lives of Animals."

Spider quiz: Test your web of knowledge

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/animals/spiders/tiny-spiders-that-build-giant-puppet-decoys-from-disembodied-prey-discovered-in-peru-and-philippines at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

November 11, 2025

- 'Severe' solar storm brings auroras as far south as Florida — and more are on the way tonight

- Astronomers detect first 'radio signal' from interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS — but it wasn't aliens

- No, comet 3I/ATLAS hasn't exploded — and no, that doesn't mean it's an alien spaceship

- Newly discovered toads skip the tadpole stage and give birth to live 'toadlets'

- Gold and gems quiz: What do you know about sparkly treasures made by nature?

- Prehistoric Jomon people in Japan had 'little to no' DNA from the mysterious Denisovans, study finds

- Scientists create world's first microwave-powered computer chip — it's much faster and consumes less power than conventional CPUs

- This week's Leonid meteor shower could be one of the best in years. Here's why.

- Extreme 'paradise' volcano in Costa Rica is like a piece of ancient Mars on our doorstep — Earth from space

- For the first time, physicists peer inside the nucleus of a molecule using electrons as a probe

- Science history: Russian mathematician quietly publishes paper — and solves one of the most famous unsolved conjectures in mathematics — Nov. 11, 2002

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > THE SUN

NEWS | BRANDON SPECKTOR | NOV 11, 2025, 6:28 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

'Severe' solar storm brings auroras as far south as Florida — and more are on the way tonight

The most powerful solar flare of 2025 has launched a ball of energy toward Earth that could trigger widespread auroras across the United States tonight.

Auroras spotted over a farm in Wisconsin on Nov. 11, 2025. The Northern Lights last night were visible as far south as Florida and Mexico. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Editor's note: This article was updated on Nov. 12 at 11 a.m. after two of the three incoming CMEs hit Earth overnight.

The combined solar outbursts triggered a severe G4 geomagnetic storm, resulting in auroras appearing as far south as Arizona, Mexico, Texas, and Florida.

Conditions have since subsided to G3 (strong) levels, but NOAA predicts that G4 conditions could return tonight following the arrival of the third and strongest CME, which is expected to hit Earth sometime today. Elevated auroral activity is likely to carry over into Thursday (Nov. 13) and Friday (Nov. 14), according to the latest NOAA update.

Three powerful outbursts of solar plasma are barrelling toward Earth, with dazzling auroras possible across the northern half of the United States over the coming nights.

Minor auroral activity is possible at high latitudes tonight (Nov. 11), but Wednesday (Nov. 12) could bring the Northern Lights as far south as northern California and Alabama, according to an alert from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There could also be a strong showing of auroras on Thursday (Nov. 13), NOAA added, though that forecast may change as more data comes in over the coming days.

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The three solar outbursts headed our way — known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — were all launched from a particularly active sunspot called AR4274, which is currently aimed toward Earth. The first two CMEs erupted on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, respectively, and were each triggered by powerful X-class solar flares — the most powerful class of solar flare on NOAA's space weather prediction scale.

These flares were categorized as class X1.7 and X1.2, and the resulting CMEs have a chance to combine with or "cannibalize" each other as they speed toward Earth, according to Live Science's sister site Space.com. These first two CMEs are expected to hit sometime tonight.

The third, and most powerful CME, was launched on Tuesday morning following the eruption of a gargantuan X5.1 solar flare — almost five times the intensity of the two preceding flares, and the single strongest solar flare of 2025 so far. The powerful flare triggered radio blackouts over Europe and Africa shortly after it erupted, according to Space.com.

NOAA predicts strong auroral activity across the northern United States over the next two to three nights. (Image credit: NOAA)

'Severe' storms possible

The monster CME accompanying this flare is predicted to hit Earth sometime on Wednesday (Nov. 12), according to NOAA. Combined with the effects of the two prior outbursts, this could cause serious disturbances to Earth's magnetic field. NOAA predicts the resulting geomagnetic storm could reach "severe" G4 levels — the second highest level on the agency's scale.

Besides plunging the Northern Lights to much lower latitudes than usual, G4-class geomagnetic storms can cause power grid fluctuations, low-frequency radio disturbances, and GPS errors, according to NOAA.

There is nothing that an average person needs to do to prepare for a geomagnetic storm. However, if you wish to go aurora hunting over the coming nights, find a dark sky location as far from artificial lights as possible and allow about 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust. You don't need any special equipment to see the aurora, but the colors can sometimes look even more vibrant through a digital camera or phone screen, as they have a large aperture to let in light.

Solar flares, CMEs, and geomagnetic storms all become more common — and more intense — during solar maximum, the peak of the sun's roughly 11-year activity cycle. Astronomers suspect we are seeing the current solar cycle's maximum play out right now, though the peak of activity may have already occurred last year.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/strongest-solar-flare-of-2025-erupts-and-it-could-bring-auroras-to-half-the-us-on-wednesday at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > COMETS

NEWS | HARRY BAKER | NOV 11, 2025, 3:00 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Astronomers detect first 'radio signal' from interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS — but it wasn't aliens

Astronomers at South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope have detected the first radio waves coming from the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. But while this sounds suspiciously like alien activity, it is actually further proof of its completely natural origins.

South Africa's MeerKAT telescope, which is made up of an array of 64 radio dishes, has detected the first radio signal coming from the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. (Image credit: SARAO/MeerKAT)

Astronomers have detected the first-ever "radio signal" coming from the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, right as it passed the halfway mark on its oneway trip through the solar system. And while this may seem like ostensible proof of the comet’s supposed alien origins — it's actually the complete opposite.

3I/ATLAS is the third-known interstellar object (ISO) to pass through our cosmic neighborhood. It was first spotted in early July, speeding toward the sun at more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h), although observations dating back to May have since been uncovered. Most researchers agree that it is a comet, potentially the oldest of its kind ever seen, that was catapulted out of an alien star system in the "frontier" region of the Milky Way up to 7 billion years ago.

However, ever since the interstellar interloper was discovered, a small group of scientists — led by Harvard University astrophysicist and renowned alien-hunter Avi Loeb — have been promoting the unevidenced theory that the comet is actually an alien spacecraft in disguise. This has led to a number of misleading stories about the comet, which experts say distracts from the real science surrounding the ISO. (This is similar to what happened to the first-ever ISO 'Oumumua, which Loeb and others also labelled as a potential alien mothership.)

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So, when astronomers at South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope recently announced that they had detected the first radio emissions from 3I/ATLAS, proponents of Loeb's theory were probably expecting to find evidence of some covert alien transmission, especially as it coincided with the comet's closest approach to the sun, or perihelion, which occurred on Oct. 29.

But the signals did not have a technological origin. Instead, they are the result of specific wavelength absorption related to the presence of hydroxyl radicals, or OH molecules, in the comet's coma.

3I/ATLAS has displayed multiple classic signs of cometary activity, including a striking tail that emerged in the build up to its perihelion. (Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the ScientistImage Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab))

These radicals are formed by the breakdown of water molecules as they are ejected from the comet via a natural process known as outgassing, which is a clear sign of cometary activity, according to a 2016 study.

This is not the first time that astronomers have seen evidence of water coming from 3I/ATLAS: In early October, NASA researchers spotted water spewing from the comet "like a fire hose" on full blast. But the latest findings show that this water is being broken down by solar radiation —as you would expect during perihelion.

Loeb acknowledged the detection of the hydroxyl radicals in the latest 3I/ATLAS update on his personal blog, which now has over 100,000 subscribers. However, he did not state whether this was a sign of classic cometary activity or not.

The new radio signals were first detected on Oct. 24, shortly after 3I/ATLAS briefly disappeared behind the sun during perihelion. The comet's solar flyby was also notable for an unexpected brightening event and a temporary color change. And after reappearing earlier this month, the comet then appeared to have lost its tail, although this turned out not to be true.

A newly discovered comet, dubbed C/2025 V1 (Borisov), was wrongly linked with 3I/ATLAS, despite having nothing to do with the ISO. It made it reached its closest point to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11). (Image credit: NASA/JPL)

The comet has previously displayed several other anomalous characteristics that have added fuel to the fires of alien conspiracy theorists, including a highly irradiated surface, an overabundance of carbon dioxide and a puzzling anti-tail. However, all of these traits have been properly explained by the astronomical community, which is almost unanimously convinced that 3I/ATLAS is a natural object.

A separate yet connected alien theory was also squashed this week when astronomers detected an "almost interstellar object" that reached its closest point to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11). Rumors suggested that it could have been a probe deployed by 3I/ATLAS during perihelion, but this was quickly trashed, with even Loeb admitting the claim was unlikely. Instead, the newly discovered object, dubbed C/2025 V1 (Borisov) is a typical solar system comet.

Other reports, which cited Loeb's calculations on 3I/ATLAS's non-gravitational acceleration, also suggested that the comet may have exploded due to its supposedly excessive loss of mass. However, recent observations have proved that this is not the case either.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/astronomers-detect-first-radio-signal-from-interstellar-comet-3i-atlas-but-it-wasnt-aliens at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > COMETS

NEWS | PATRICK PESTER | NOV 11, 2025, 12:40 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

No, comet 3I/ATLAS hasn't exploded — and no, that doesn't mean it's an alien spaceship

Comet 3I/ATLAS appears to be normal and intact, despite some reports that the interstellar visitor exploded after its brush with the sun.

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS imaged from Manciano, Italy on Nov. 11. (Image credit: Gianluca Masi, Virtual Telescope Project)

Comet 3I/ATLAS lovers don't despair: Our favourite interstellar visitor most likely didn’t just explode, an expert says after examining the latest observations.

Yesterday (Nov. 10), Futurism reported that comet 3I/ATLAS may have broken into pieces after re-emerging from behind the far side of the sun. The science and technology website quoted the blog of Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb, who calculated that the comet lost a lot of mass based on a 3I/ATLAS image captured by two small telescopes in Spain on Sunday (Nov 9).

However, Loeb's assessments of 3I/ATLAS have come under increased scrutiny in recent days. He was once again using his blog to speculate that the comet could be an alien spaceship. Yet most researchers are confident it's a natural object, and that it hasn’t, as a matter of fact, exploded.

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"All the images I've seen show a fairly ordinary/healthy-looking comet," Qicheng Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona who has been studying the comet, told Live Science in an email. "There's no sign at all that the nucleus broke apart."

Comet 3I/ATLAS recently disappeared (briefly) behind the sun, reaching its closest point to our star, known as perihelion, on Thursday (Oct. 29). As it reemerges, astronomers are eagerly watching it to learn more about its makeup. That’s because comets heat up as they fly closer to stars, causing ice on their surface to sublimate into gas which researchers can then detect and study.

That newly unleashed gas can burst through the comet’s surface in gargantuan jets, wrap around the comet’s body in a cloud called a coma, or be swept away into the comet’s long tail. All of these features are made brighter by the sun’s ionizing radiation, allowing even amateur astronomers to study the comet under the right conditions.

From Earth's perspective, the comet is currently rising higher and higher above the eastern horizon and, with the right conditions, is visible through a small telescope (6-inch lens) in much of the Northern Hemisphere.

And everyone is sure to be looking. Comet 3I/ATLAS has become a lightning rod of celestial speculation since its discovery in July, with Loeb and others suggesting that the comet — an interstellar visitor from beyond our solar system that’s thought to be more than 7 billion years old — might be an alien probe.

Yet most astronomers are confident that the interstellar visitor is a natural comet from an unknown star system in the Milky Way. The comet’s natural origins should be cause for excitement, not disappointment: 3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar comet ever recorded, is the most massive of its kind, and potentially the oldest comet ever seen.

In an image taken by amateur astronomers Michael Buechner and Frank Niebling on Sunday (Nov. 9), jets appear to be shooting off the comet. This led Loeb to use an estimate of the amount of jetted material and the comet's corresponding mass to claim that it would have needed a much larger surface area than has been observed if it were a natural object.

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Loeb's assessment also claimed that the comet should have broken up into at least 16 pieces — so if astronomers find that it hasn't broken up in upcoming observations, Loeb thinks scientists will have to consider that it isn't a natural comet.

To put it lightly, astronomers disagree.

"I checked Avi Loeb's blog, and it sounds like he's just built a house of cards on top of his unfounded claim about the comet's acceleration, which was an egregious misinterpretation of the comet's orbital parameters anyone who's ever computed any comet's orbit will immediately recognize as faulty," Zhang said.

Before his latest post, Loeb’s claims were already drawing strong criticisms from astronomers. On Sunday, Jason T Wright, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University, wrote in his blog that there weren't any indications that 3I/ATLAS was an alien spacecraft, breaking down ten of Loeb’s claims about unnatural “anomalies” point by point. He also questioned Loeb's expertise and criticised his posts and papers.

"In these papers and on his blog he regularly betrays an unfamiliarity with well-established planetary science concepts and misinterprets papers and comes to erroneous conclusions," Wright wrote.

3I/ATLAS will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 19. Until then, expect many more new observations and claims — just take them with a grain of salt.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/no-comet-3i-atlas-hasnt-exploded-and-no-that-doesnt-mean-its-an-alien-spaceship at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

ANIMALS > AMPHIBIANS > TOADS

NEWS | SKYLER WARE | NOV 11, 2025, 12:17 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Newly discovered toads skip the tadpole stage and give birth to live 'toadlets'

Three newly-identified toad species in Tanzania give birth to live young, skipping the frogspawn and tadpole stages — an "exceptionally rare" trait among toads and frogs.

This toad is part of a newly identified species, Nectophrynoides luhomeroensis, that gives birth to live young. (Image credit: John Lyarkurwa)

Scientists have identified three new toad species that give birth to live "toadlets" rather than laying eggs.

All three species are part of the Nectophrynoides genus, also known as "tree toads," which is a group known for birthing live baby toads that skip the tadpole stage. Previously thought to be one species with a large population and habitat range, these smaller, more fragmented species may require additional conservation measures, researchers wrote in a new study.

"Live-bearing is exceptionally rare among frogs and toads, practiced by less than 1% of frogs species, making these new species exceptionally interesting," study co-author H. Christoph Liedtke, a researcher who studies amphibian evolution at the Spanish National Research Council, said in a statement.

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Just 17 of over 7,000 known species of frogs and toads were known to give birth to live young prior to this study, with 13 of them being part of the Nectophrynoides genus. The new study, published Nov. 6 in the journal Vertebrate Zoology, adds the three newly identified species to each of those totals.

Researchers first identified a species called Nectophrynoides viviparus in 1905 and classified it within the Nectophrynoides genus in 1926. Since then, scientists have found specimens of N. viviparus across the Eastern Arc Mountains and Southern Highlands of Tanzania. But a 2016 study suggested that many of those toads were genetically distinct enough that they might be from multiple similar-but-distinct species.

In the new study, researchers looked more closely at Nectophrynoides toads from the Eastern Arc Mountains. They studied hundreds of toad specimens preserved in museums, as well as recordings of some of the toads' calls in the wild. Using methods collectively known as museomics, they also sampled mitochondrial DNA from some of the museum specimens.

One of the newly described toad species, N. uhehe.  (Image credit: Michele Menegon)

Together, the research revealed that the toads in that region were in fact from four separate species, three of which had not been identified before. These species — Nectophrynoides saliensis, Nectophrynoides luhomeroensis and Nectophrynoides uhehe — look similar to N. viviparus. However, slight differences in their genetics, their head shapes, and the shape and positioning of the glands on their shoulders distinguish them. Other toads from farther north in the mountains might constitute even more new species, the scientists noted.

"Some of these specimens were collected over 120 years ago," study co-author Alice Petzold, an evolutionary scientist at the University of Potsdam in Germany, said in the statement. "Our museomics work was able to reveal exactly which populations those old specimens belonged to, giving us a lot more confidence for future work on these toads."

Researchers previously thought N. viviparus was widespread across the Eastern Arc Mountains and Southern Highlands and that it wasn't vulnerable or endangered. But the discovery that the four distinct species have much smaller and more fragmented habitats could change their conservation statuses, since each individual species might be more at risk than expected. One related species, Nectophrynoides asperginis, went extinct in the wild in 2009 following the construction of a nearby dam and a fungal disease outbreak.

"The forests where these toads are known to occur are disappearing quickly," study co-author John Lyakurwa, a biologist at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, said in the statement. These habitats are vulnerable to both human uses and climate change.

Future studies could help scientists determine how threatened each species is and inform possible conservation strategies, the researchers wrote in the study.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/animals/toads/newly-discovered-toads-skip-the-tadpole-stage-and-give-birth-to-live-toadlets at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PLANET EARTH

QUIZZES | KRISTINA KILLGROVE | NOV 11, 2025, 12:13 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Gold and gems quiz: What do you know about sparkly treasures made by nature?

Think you know a lot about jewels? Can you make this whole quiz shimmer?

Humans have made jewelry out of gold and gemstones for thousands of years. (Image credit: kyoshino via Getty Images)

Television and internet ads regularly extol the classic beauty of gold jewelry and dazzling shine of cut gemstones. While we're all familiar with the precious gems — diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds — there are hundreds more semiprecious gemstones, according to the International Gem Society. And sometimes even organic materials that are made into jewelry (like pearls) are considered gemstones.

Many gemstones are crafted into jewelry using gold, a soft, malleable element. Although gold is a relatively rare metal, scientists aren't sure exactly how much of it exists in the world — or how much is left to mine.

Think you're as brilliant as a multifaceted diamond? Start the quiz below, my ever-lovely jewels, to find out if you're stuck in an onyx night or if your sky is opalite.

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Remember to log in to put your name on the leaderboard; hints are available if you click the yellow button!

You'll rock this!

Discover more science quizzes

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- What's inside Earth quiz: Test your knowledge of our planet's hidden layers

- US national parks quiz: How many of the 63 can you name?

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/gold-and-gems-quiz-what-do-you-know-about-sparkly-treasures-made-by-nature at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

ARCHAEOLOGY > HUMAN EVOLUTION

NEWS | SOPHIE BERDUGO | NOV 11, 2025, 9:48 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Prehistoric Jomon people in Japan had 'little to no' DNA from the mysterious Denisovans, study finds

The prehistoric Jomon people of Japan had "unexpectedly low" levels of DNA from the Denisovans, our mysterious human relatives.

The 146,000-year-old cranium of an individual with Denisovan mitochondrial DNA discovered in northeastern China. (Image credit: Fu et al, Cell (2025) CC-by-4.0)

The Jomon people living in prehistoric Japan had "little to no" Denisovan DNA, suggesting their ancestors may not have been in contact with this now-extinct group of Eurasian humans, a new study reports.

The finding was part of an investigation into hundreds of ancient and modern genomes to determine when and where modern humans (Homo sapiens) mated with our mysterious Denisovan cousins.

"Surprisingly, we found that individuals in the Japanese archipelago from the prehistoric Jomon period [from around 16,000 to 3,000 years ago] carried the least Denisovan ancestry among ancient and present-day East Asians," the researchers wrote in the study, which was published Oct. 20 in the journal Current Biology.

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In addition, the team found that ancient mainland East Asians, for example from China and Mongolia, carried more Denisovan genes than any other Eurasian population. These early East Asians got their high amount of Denisovan ancestry from multiple Denisovan groups before the Last Glacial Maximum (roughly 26,500 to 19,000 years ago), the coldest part of the last ice age, the team found.

Meanwhile, ancient Western Eurasians, such as those in Iran and Georgia, harbored the least Denisovan ancestry, the team reported.

The findings are helping scientists to map out early human migrations and how different groups mixed. "Denisovan DNA represents a powerful marker to reconstruct population history," study co-author Stéphane Peyrégne, an evolutionary geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, said in a statement.

Mysterious Denisovans

Little is known about the Denisovans, who lived in Eurasia from about 200,000 to 30,000 years ago, but researchers have found a handful of their remains and traces of their DNA in present-day Oceanians, East Asians, Southeast Asians and Indigenous Americans.

To track when and where Denisovan DNA entered the genome of modern humans, the team analyzed the genetic makeup of 115 H. sapiens whose ancient remains were found in the U.S., South America, West Eurasia, Siberia and East Asia. The oldest remains were from an individual who lived roughly 45,000 years ago in what is now Bulgaria, while the most recent remains were from a person who lived 766 years ago in what is now Siberia. They also analyzed the genomes of 279 present-day individuals whose data is recorded in the Simons Genome Diversity Project.

The researchers found the most Denisovan ancestry in roughly 40,000-year-old human remains from China, called Tianyuan, with 0.25% of their genome coming from Denisovans. Analyses revealed Tianyuan's DNA came from multiple different Denisovan groups.

The researchers were surprised to find that Japanese people from the prehistoric Jomon period had very little Denisovan ancestry, with one individual who lived 3,755 years ago sporting one-sixth to one-eighth of the Denisovan DNA found in present-day East Asians. (Modern East Asians have around 0.1% Denisovan DNA).

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However, Denisovan genes eventually found their way into Japan. People from the Kofun period in Japan (from around A.D. 300 to 710) had more Denisovan DNA than Jomon individuals, with these genes potentially entering genomes following the mass migration of East Asians into Japan during this period.

For now, it's unclear why the Jomon had little Denisovan ancestry, but the team has ideas.

It may be that "some [modern human] groups took different routes during the early dispersals in East Asia," study first author Jiaqi Yang, a doctoral researcher of evolutionary genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said in the statement. "Or, Denisovans were so sparsely distributed that interactions with them were rare."

The researchers cannot be sure on the exact scenario because the data available are limited. Currently, the oldest Jomon genome is only around 9,000 years old, but there is evidence of modern humans living in the Japanese archipelago from around 32,000 years ago. Genetic data from that missing 23,000-year period "might help resolve the early population history in the region," the authors wrote in the study.

Human evolution quiz: What do you know about Homo sapiens?

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/prehistoric-jomon-people-in-japan-had-little-to-no-dna-from-the-mysterious-denisovans-study-finds at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

TECHNOLOGY > COMPUTING

NEWS | PETER RAY ALLISON | NOV 11, 2025, 7:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Scientists create world's first microwave-powered computer chip — it's much faster and consumes less power than conventional CPUs

A new kind of processor that uses microwaves can be used in future AI systems or in wireless communications, a new study shows.

(Image credit: Charissa King-O’Brien/Cornell Engineering)

Scientists have developed an entirely new kind of microchip that uses microwaves instead of conventional digital circuitry to perform operations.

The processor, which can perform faster than conventional CPUs, is the world's first fully functional microwave neural network (MNN) that can fit on a chip, scientists reported in a study published Aug. 14 in the journal Nature Electronics.

High-bandwidth applications, such as radar imaging, demand high-speed processing. Microwaves that operate in the analog spectrum can meet the processing needs of these applications, which is why scientists have pursued this new approach to computing.

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"Because it's able to distort in a programmable way across a wide band of frequencies instantaneously, it can be repurposed for several computing tasks," lead study author Bal Govind, a doctoral student at Cornell University, said in a statement. "It bypasses a large number of signal processing steps that digital computers normally have to do."

The power of microwaves

The chip uses analog waves in the microwave range of the electromagnetic spectrum, within an artificial intelligence (AI) neural network, to give a comb-like pattern in the waveform of the microwaves. The regularly spaced spectral lines in the frequency comb act like a ruler, thus enabling quick and accurate measurements of frequencies.

Neural networks, which underpin the microwave chip, are collections of machine learning algorithms that are inspired by the structure of the human brain. The microwave brain chip uses interconnected electromagnetic nodes within tunable waveguides to identify patterns in datasets and adapt to incoming information.

The microwave brain was created using the MNN, an integrated circuit that processes spectral components (individual frequencies in a signal) by capturing input data features across a broad bandwidth.

The chip is capable of solving simple logic operations and advanced computations, such as recognizing binary sequences or identifying patterns in high-speed data with an 88% accuracy rate. In the study, the scientists noted that they proved this across several wireless signal classification challenges.

By operating in the microwave analog range and applying a probabilistic approach, the chip can process data streams on the order of tens of gigahertz (at least 20 billion operations per second). This speed exceeds that of most home-computer processors, which typically operate between 2.5 and 4 GHz (2.5 billion to 4 billion operations per second).

"Bal threw away a lot of conventional circuit design to achieve this," co-senior author Alyssa Apsel, director of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, said in the statement. "Instead of trying to mimic the structure of digital neural networks exactly, he created something that looks more like a controlled mush of frequency behaviors that can ultimately give you high-performance computation."

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You need more circuitry, more power and more error correction to maintain accuracy in conventional digital systems, Govind added in the statement. But the probabilistic approach means the researchers maintained high accuracy across both simple and complex computations, without adding more overhead.

The microwave chip's low power consumption is also notable. It can consume less than 200 milliwatts (less than 0.2 watts), which is approximately the same transmit power as mobile phones. By comparison, most CPUs require an input power of at least 65 W.

This low power usage means the chip could be installed in personal devices or wearable technologies, the scientists said. It is a promising technology for use in edge computing, as it could reduce latency by removing the need to connect to a central server. It could also be useful in AI deployment, as it could offer a high-processing alternative with low-power requirements for training AI models.

The researchers' next step will be to simplify the design by reducing the number of waveguides and making the chip smaller. A more compact chip could use interconnected combs, which could generate a richer output spectrum and help to train the neural network.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/scientists-create-worlds-first-microwave-powered-computer-chip-its-much-faster-and-consumes-less-power-than-conventional-cpus at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > METEOROIDS

NEWS | JAMIE CARTER | NOV 11, 2025, 7:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

This week's Leonid meteor shower could be one of the best in years. Here's why.

The Leonids peak overnight Nov. 16-17, offering up to 15 meteors per hour under dark, moonless skies.

About 15 "shooting stars" per hour may be visible during the peak of the Leonid meteor shower. (Image credit: wenbin via Getty Images)

The annual Leonid meteor shower will peak in the early morning hours Monday (Nov. 17), and if you're willing to rise early (or stay up late), you may spot up to 15 meteors per hour in a moonless night sky.

The Leonids are active from Nov. 6 to 30, but the peak night — when Earth passes through the densest part of the meteor stream — will take place between midnight and dawn on Nov. 17.

This year's Leonids offer one of their best viewing windows in recent years, thanks to a nearly moonless night. According to the American Meteor Society, a waning crescent moon — just 9% illuminated — will rise late in the predawn hours, leaving the prime viewing hours free of moonlight.

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Leonid meteors are known for their speed, striking Earth's atmosphere at approximately 44 miles per second (70 kilometers per second). This velocity often produces bright meteors, or fireballs, some of which leave persistent trails.

The Leonids are caused by tiny particles from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle that burn up in the atmosphere, producing meteors. The comet orbits the sun every 33 years and is due to return to the inner solar system in 2031.

Historically, the Leonids have been known for producing dramatic meteor storms. These rare events, where rates exceeded 1,000 meteors per hour, were recorded in 1833, 1866, 1966, 1999, 2001 and 2002. The 1966 Leonid meteor shower is rated as the finest in recorded history; so many meteors were seen in a 15-minute period that they appeared to fall like rain, according to NASA. No dense debris encounters are expected this year, however, so a meteor storm is unlikely.

For the best experience, head outside between 2 a.m. and dawn on Nov. 17. Find a location away from city lights, lie back with a wide view of the sky, and allow your eyes about 20 minutes to adapt to the dark.

Leonids appear to radiate from the constellation Leo, which rises in the eastern sky after midnight. However, meteors can be seen in any part of the sky, and stargazing binoculars or a telescope can help you spot them. Because Leo is on the celestial equator, this meteor shower can be seen just as easily in both hemispheres.

After the Leonids, the next major meteor shower will be the Geminids — the most prolific meteor shower of the year. During this event, which peaks Dec. 13-14, around 140 "shooting stars" per hour may be visible.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/meteoroids/this-weeks-leonid-meteor-shower-could-be-one-of-the-best-in-years-heres-why at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PLANET EARTH > VOLCANOS

FEATURES | HARRY BAKER | NOV 11, 2025, 6:49 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Extreme 'paradise' volcano in Costa Rica is like a piece of ancient Mars on our doorstep — Earth from space

A 2025 satellite photo captures the stark contrast between the barren Poás volcano and the surrounding Costa Rican jungle. The volcano's super-acidic lake provides the perfect analog for studying how hardy microbes may have emerged on Mars billions of years ago.

Costa Rica's Mars-like Poás volcano clearly stands out from the surrounding rainforest when viewed from space. (Image credit: NASA/Landsat 8)

This striking satellite photo shows a barren Mars-like volcano lurking in the heart of the Costa Rican rainforest. The alien landscape contains a super-acidic lake that is a "paradise" for extreme microbes and provides researchers with an excellent analog for studying potential lifeforms on the Red Planet.

The unique volcano, named Poás, is the focal point of the Poás Volcano National Park in Costa Rica's Alajuela province. It is a stratovolcano that formed between 1.5 million and 700,000 years ago, with a summit that reaches 8,848 feet (2,697 meters) above sea level.

Satellite images make it look like Poás is situated in the middle of nowhere. However, around 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of the volcano (just out of shot in this photo), lie the suburbs of Costa Rica's capital San José, which is home to around 1.5 million people. As a result, the volcano is a popular tourist destination, despite being one of the most active volcanoes in Central America.

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Poás has had dozens of major eruptions in the last 200 years, but also experiences many more smaller outbursts, where it puffs out a mix of steam, smoke and toxic gases, as well as the occasional ash cloud. Since 2005, the volcano has had 13 of these minor eruptive phases, according to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.

Its most recent eruption began on Jan. 5 and persisted for the majority of 2025, although it has likely now come to an end. This phase's activity peaked in early May, when sulfur dioxide levels briefly impacted air quality in San José and ashfall damaged some nearby crops, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.

Related: See all the best images of Earth from space

At the summit of Poás lies a large crater, which is home to a highly acidic volcanic lake, known as Laguna Caliente. (Image credit: Nano Calvo/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The main crater of Poás contains a highly acidic volcanic lake, named Laguna Caliente, which has an average pH value of just over 0, which is roughly equivalent to battery acid, according to the Earth Observatory. This crater, which is around 0.8 miles (1.3 km) wide, is also home to sporadic geysers.

While these extreme conditions mean no animals or plants live within the crater, the lake's acidic waters are home to a thriving microbial community dominated by extremophile bacteria in the genus Acidiphilium, which feast on metal compounds dissolved in the water.

"We have a very human-centric bias for what a nice, happy, temperate environment is to grow in," Rachel Harris, a microbial ecologist and geochemist at Harvard University who is currently involved in devising NASA's Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy, told the Earth Observatory. "The Poás system may be hostile to most forms of life we are familiar with. But for a microbe adapted to acid, heat and toxic metals, it's paradise," Earth Observatory representatives added.

Researchers are interested in Poás' extreme ecosystem because it is very similar to volcanic environments that likely existed on Mars more than 3 billion years ago, when the Red Planet was more similar to our own.

The conditions within Poás' summit crater are similar to what scientists think the Martian plateau "Home Plate" was like billions of years ago. (Image credit: NASA)

A 2022 study, for example, revealed that the low biodiversity and high resilience within Laguna Caliente's microbial community is very close to what researchers expect could have developed within potential Martian ecosystems.

Poás is particularly similar to a region of Mars, known as Home Plate, which was surveyed by NASA's Spirit rover in 2009. This 300-foot-wide (90 m) plateau likely had an acidic hydrothermal system that may have been almost identical to Laguna Caliente, according to the Earth Observatory.

Other types of extremophiles may also have once thrived on Mars, including lifeforms similar to lichens or photosynthetic algae. However, despite some promising recent findings from NASA's Perseverance rover, there is no hard evidence that the Red Planet has ever supported alien life.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/extreme-paradise-volcano-in-costa-rica-is-like-a-piece-of-ancient-mars-on-our-doorstep-earth-from-space at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PHYSICS & MATHEMATICS > PARTICLE PHYSICS

NEWS | LARISSA G. CAPELLA | NOV 11, 2025, 6:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

For the first time, physicists peer inside the nucleus of a molecule using electrons as a probe

A novel experiment has revealed a phenomenon called the Bohr–Weisskopf effect in a pear-shaped nucleus in a molecule for the first time.

An illustration of a molecule. Using electrons to probe a molecule's nucleus, scientists have demonstrated an elusive phenomenon. (Image credit: Iana Kunitsa via Getty Images)

Physicists have studied a rare molecule to look at how magnetism is distributed within a radioactive nucleus for the first time.

The rules of nature don’t, generally speaking, change. If you toss a ball in Seattle or in Tokyo, it falls the same way. Physicists call this “symmetry”, and they use symmetry as a guide to how the universe ought to behave. It’s what keeps the world consistent — if the laws of physics worked differently on Tuesdays, the universe would be chaos.

But some parts of nature don’t seem to follow this perfect balance. For example, it may seem fair to assume that the universe should treat matter and antimatter as equals. Yet our universe is made almost entirely of matter, and physicists still don’t know why.

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One promising place to search for answers is inside radioactive nuclei. That is because the uneven arrangement of protons and neutrons can magnify the tiniest breaks in symmetry. If scientists are able to detect those small asymmetries, it could reveal new physics beyond the Standard Model, according to Silviu-Marian Udrescu, a physicist at MIT and co-author of a new study into the phenomenon.

In a study published Oct. 23 in the journal Science, scientists at CERN and MIT examined a short-lived radioactive molecule called radium monofluoride (RaF) to measure its energy spectrum. But, surprisingly, they ended up making the first observation of how magnetism is distributed within one of its nuclei. That phenomenon, known as the Bohr–Weisskopf effect, had never been seen in a molecule before.

The avocado of the atom

The RaF molecule is made of two atoms: radium and fluoride. Each with its own nucleus. The radium nucleus has a property called “octupole deformation”.

“You can think of it as the nucleus itself having the shape of a pear or an avocado,” ‪Shane Wilkins‬, a physicist at MIT and the study’s first author, told Live Science. Because of its asymmetric shape, RaF makes a perfect candidate to find the asymmetries the team was looking for.

“It’s a very rare property,” Udrescu added. “It only occurs in a few handfuls of atomic nuclei across the entire nuclear chart. And all of those nuclei that have this pear shape are radioactive.”

A radium atom's pear-shaped nucleus, surrounded by a cloud of electrons (yellow). An individual electron (yellow ball with arrow) has a probability to be inside the nucleus. (Image credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

That radioactivity makes such nuclei difficult to study because these isotopes are unstable and short-lived. That means they decay within around 15 days, and can disappear before researchers can make many measurements. “We can only produce them in very small quantities,” Wilkins said.

The Bohr-Weisskopf effect has been observed in individual atoms, where electrons interact with a single nucleus. However, detecting it inside a molecule is more challenging. That is because electrons constantly move between the two nuclei. The movement can blur magnetic signals and make them harder to detect. In a RaF molecule, the fluoride atom is a simpler bond partner. It allows scientists to focus on the magnetic structure of the heavier radium nucleus.

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The team first created radium monofluoride at CERN’s ISOLDE facility. They blasted a uranium target with high-energy protons to produce the rare isotope radium-225 and combined it with fluorine gas. Each molecule existed for only fractions of a second. The researchers could detect only about fifty per second in the right state for measurement.

Then, they directed multiple laser beams of slightly different frequencies at the molecules. When the molecule absorbed or emitted light, scientists recorded the tiny changes in that light. This produced a spectrum. Normally, those patterns tell scientists about how the electrons move around the nucleus. But in this case, some of the shifts revealed that the electrons were being influenced by the inside of the nucleus.

“The electron actually probes inside the nucleus, so you can no longer treat it as a long-range interaction. Instead, it starts to sense the internal properties of the radium nucleus itself,” said Wilkins.

“This effect is called the Bohr–Weisskopf effect,” Wilkins added. “To the best of our knowledge, it’s never been seen in a molecule before. The fact that we could both observe this effect experimentally and describe it with theory tells us a lot about how suitable these molecules are for future precision measurements.”

Now that the researchers have mapped RaF’s internal structure, they can use it to probe even smaller effects that might break nature’s symmetries. The next step, Wilkins said, is to slow and trap these molecules with lasers to perform even more precise measurements.

“Now we know they can be powerful tools to look for new physics,” said Udrescu.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/particle-physics/for-the-first-time-physicists-peer-inside-the-nucleus-of-a-molecule-using-electrons-as-a-probe at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

PHYSICS & MATHEMATICS > MATHEMATICS

FEATURES | TIA GHOSE | NOV 11, 2025, 2:00 AM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Science history: Russian mathematician quietly publishes paper — and solves one of the most famous unsolved conjectures in mathematics — Nov. 11, 2002

Mathematician Grigori Perelman solved the Poincaré conjecture, and then rejected the $1 million prize that came with it.

A torus is not equivalent to a sphere because the two blue loops drawn on its surface cannot be continuously tightened to a point. (Image credit: Marilyn Perkins; Contains assets from Doni Purba and Pazhyna via Getty Images)

On a cold day in November, a man living quietly in Russia posted a paper to a public server.

Published by "Grisha Perelman" and titled "The entropy formula for the Ricci flow and its geometric applications," it was the foundation for one of the most important math proofs.

The paper was the first of three published over the next year solving the long-standing Poincaré conjecture, a hypothesis posed nearly a century earlier by Henri Poincaré.

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In simple terms, Poincaré hypothesized that if you were to take any kind of 3D space — from a cat to the Empire State Building — and draw a 2D loop on it, if you can shrink that loop down to a point without breaking either the loop or the shape, then the space is mathematically equivalent to a sphere.

Proving this conjecture was crucial to topology, the mathematical study of shapes. Mathematician Stephen Smale had solved the conjecture in five dimensions in 1961, earning math's prestigious Fields Medal in the process. But the 3D case proved the most intractable.

In the 1980s, Richard Hamilton, a mathematician at Columbia University, proposed solving the conjecture using a math technique called Ricci flow, which had been useful for Einstein's theory of general relativity, as well as string theory.

Grigori Perelman in 1993. (Image credit: By George M. Bergman, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link)

In 2006, New York Times reporter Dennis Overbye likened the Ricci flow technique to using heat from a hair dryer to smooth out shrink-wrap. Similarly, the Ricci flow could smooth out wrinkles and curvature and reduce a complicated shape to a more fundamental one.

Ricci flow worked to simplify roundish shapes to spheres, but singularities — points of infinite density — kept cropping up in more complicated shapes. Topologists can perform a kind of "surgery" to excise these singularities, but there was still a possibility that the singularities would keep emerging forever. Researchers were stuck.

Perelman's work solved the singularity problem. Perelman (whose first name is Grigori, also spelled Grigory; Grisha was a nickname) had spent the prior decade doing postdoctoral research in the U.S. at several institutions. In the mid-1990s, he turned down very prestigious math fellowships in the U.S. and Europe, returned to St. Petersburg, and took a position at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics.

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The friendly-but-shy and "unworldly" mathematician "looked like Rasputin, with long hair and fingernails," and he told colleagues he enjoyed hiking in the woods around St. Petersburg, hunting for mushrooms, Robert Greene, a mathematician at UCLA, told Overbye in 2006. He seemed completely uninterested in wealth or material success, his colleagues reported.

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Perelman receded into obscurity after he returned to Russia in the mid- to late 1990s, and many of his colleagues thought he had left mathematics altogether.

Then Perelman published his 2002 paper. Over the next year, he published two more papers and gave a series of talks at several East Coast colleges, explaining his process. Then, he receded into the background once more.

Perelman's work showed that all of the singularities actually reduced to simple shapes, like spheres or tubes, and that if you could follow the Ricci process to its end, you would find the 3D shape reduced to a sphere. He had proved the Poincaré conjecture, but it would take another few years for mathematicians to wade through his brilliant, original and highly technical proofs and confirm that the great topographical problem had, indeed, been solved.

In 2006, mathematicians John Morgan and Gang Tian published a 473-page paper showing that Perelman's work, building on Hamilton's, did in fact prove the elusive conjecture.

Perelman was offered the prestigious Fields Medal and the Clay Millennium math prize, which came with a $1 million award. He turned them down, reportedly due to objections about how credit was given for solving the problem.

Perelman resigned from his position at the Steklov Institute in 2005 and has since ferociously avoided the limelight. It's unclear whether he is still working on math in his St. Petersburg apartment, where as of the early 2010s, his neighbors said he cared for his elderly mom.

When a reporter tried to contact him in 2010, he rejected an interview, saying, "You are disturbing me. I am picking mushrooms."

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/mathematics/science-history-russian-mathematician-quietly-publishes-paper-and-solves-one-of-the-most-famous-unsolved-conjectures-in-mathematics-nov-11-2002 at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

November 10, 2025

- 2,300-year-old tool used for skull surgery unearthed at Celtic settlement in Poland

- Canada has lost its 'measles elimination status' — here's what that means

- New 'nearly interstellar' comet — wrongly linked to 3I/ATLAS — will reach its closest point to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11)

ARCHAEOLOGY

NEWS | KRISTINA KILLGROVE | NOV 10, 2025, 4:46 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

2,300-year-old tool used for skull surgery unearthed at Celtic settlement in Poland

The uniquely shaped iron surgery implement dates to the fourth to third centuries B.C.

Archaeologists discovered this Celtic trepanation tool in Poland. (Image credit: Bartłomiej Kaczyński)

Archaeologists in Poland have discovered a rare iron tool that the Celts used to perform cranial surgery 2,300 years ago.

The hand-held artifact was found at Łysa Góra, a Celtic site in the Mazovia region of central-eastern Poland.

"The technique and precision of the iron object's manufacture indicate Celtic metallurgy," Bartłomiej Kaczyński, an archaeologist at the State Archaeological Museum in Warsaw, told Live Science in an email, and it was likely used to trepan a human skull.

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From the Greek word meaning "to bore," trepanation is a form of cranial surgery that was practiced in many cultures around the world — including in what are now Spain, Israel and Bolivia — for at least 5,000 years, until the beginning of the 19th century.

There are a few trepanation methods, but most Celts appear to have used the "traditional scraping technique of trepanation," and only a minority of Celtic settlements practiced "drill trepanations," according to a 2007 study in the journal Neurosurgical Focus.

"The Celts practiced trepanation, as indicated by individual tools discovered in graves," Kaczyński said. "It seems that these operations had not only a magical but also a medical purpose."

But so far, they have found no skeletons of people who underwent the procedure at Łysa Góra.

The presence of Celts — fierce warriors who were native to the European mainland and sacked Rome — was somewhat surprising, the team said, since Łysa Góra is the most northeastern Celtic site ever found in Europe.

Kaczyński and his team have been conducting new archaeological digs at Łysa Góra, which was first excavated in the 1970s, for two years.

In 2024, the archaeologists found hundreds of artifacts, including a rare Celtic helmet made of thin bronze sheet metal. And in the 2025 excavation, the team found Celtic brooches, a spearhead and an iron ax, as well as numerous metal objects related to horseback riding.

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The trepanation tool, discovered this spring in the same part of the site as the helmet, is even rarer than the helmet, according to Kaczyński, because only a few of these surgical tools have been found at Celtic sites. This particular implement, which features a blade that transitions to a spike and was probably originally fastened to a wooden handle, is a type of ancient scalpel.

Kaczyński told Science in Poland that the presence of an iron trepanation scalpel means that the Celts who settled in the region likely included someone with specialized medical or ritual knowledge, as well as a blacksmith who could create the tools found at Łysa Góra.

The excavations at Łysa Góra have thus far revealed that it was a fortified settlement even before the Celts arrived in the fourth century. But once the Celts arrived, "traces of bronze and iron metallurgy, unique imports, fragmented bronze and amber objects all indicate that the settlement was a key center of trade," Kaczyński said.

Amber was a prized material in the Mediterranean world at this time, Kaczyński told Live Science in 2024, and the Celts may have fortified Łysa Góra to protect their place on the "amber trail."

Celtic quiz: Test your knowledge about these fierce tribes once described by Julius Caesar

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/2-300-year-old-tool-used-for-skull-surgery-unearthed-at-celtic-settlement-in-poland at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

HEALTH > VIRUSES, INFECTIONS & DISEASE

NEWS | NICOLETTA LANESE | NOV 10, 2025, 2:14 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

Canada has lost its 'measles elimination status' — here's what that means

A large, ongoing outbreak that began in Canada in 2024 has cost the country its measles elimination status.

Measles can be deadly, and in survivors, it can cause long-term health consequences. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Canada has officially lost its measles elimination status, meaning the highly contagious disease is once again spreading consistently there.

The declaration was made by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), an international health agency, according to a Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) statement released Monday (Nov. 10). After reviewing recent epidemiological and lab data from Canada, the PAHO concluded that the same measles strain has circulated within the country for over a year.

For an infectious disease to be considered "eliminated" from a region, there must be no endemic transmission for at least a year. "Endemic transmission" refers to the consistent, sustained spread of a disease in a particular population; it does not refer to sporadic cases that might occur after an infected traveler imports a disease from elsewhere, for instance.

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In July, the PAHO noted that the Americas have seen a 29-fold increase in measles cases in 2025 compared with 2024. At that time, Canada had reported the largest number of cases of the countries assessed, with 3,170 reported between January and July.

As of late October, Canada had reported more than 5,100 measles cases this year, including 4,777 confirmed cases and 361 probable ones. These cases have been seen in 10 areas: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories.

This year's cases mark the continuation of a large, multijurisdictional outbreak that first hit the country in October 2024, according to the PHAC statement. "While transmission has slowed recently, the outbreak has persisted for over 12 months, primarily within under-vaccinated communities," PHAC officials said.

Now, PHAC is collaborating with the PAHO and working with federal, provincial, territorial and community partners to improve vaccination coverage, strengthen surveillance efforts and provide evidence-based guidance to communities, according to the statement. Canada could earn back its elimination status if "transmission of the measles strain associated with the current outbreak is interrupted for at least 12 months."

Meanwhile, the United States eliminated measles in 2000 but has seen a similar recent increase in the number of cases. Texas has been hardest hit among the states affected by outbreaks this year, followed by Arizona, New Mexico and Kansas. Per the latest data, nearly 1,700 cases have been reported across the entire U.S. so far in 2025, up from 285 in all of 2024.

"Measles vaccination is the best way to prevent measles and stop outbreaks. We see this clearly by looking at the vaccination status of measles cases in the United States," the Johns Hopkins U.S. Measles Tracker says. "Unvaccinated individuals or those with unknown vaccination status represent almost all reported measles cases" in the country this year.

Although the childhood vaccination schedule has been under renewed scrutiny under Health and Human Services Secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for now the recommendations for measles vaccination have remained much the same.

Nonetheless, measles vaccination rates have been falling to concerningly low levels in the U.S. in recent years. Models suggest that, if current vaccination rates stay steady, the disease may become endemic to the country within 20 years. That scenario would lead to an estimated 851,300 cases, 170,200 hospitalizations and 2,550 deaths from measles over the next 25 years from now. And given that measles can cause a range of long-term health complications in survivors of the illness, the U.S. would also see those knock-on issues surge.

If vaccination rates fall, rather than remain steady as in the above scenario, the projected outcomes are worse, the models show.

Disclaimer

This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/health/viruses-infections-disease/canada-has-lost-its-measles-elimination-status-heres-what-that-means at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

SPACE > ASTRONOMY > COMETS

NEWS | HARRY BAKER | NOV 10, 2025, 1:12 PM EST | VIEW ON LIVESCIENCE

New 'nearly interstellar' comet — wrongly linked to 3I/ATLAS — will reach its closest point to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11)

Newly discovered comet C/2025 V1 (Borisov), which has some minor similarities to 3I/ATLAS, will make its closest approach to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11). However, despite recent rumors, the two objects are not related to one another.

Astronomers have discovered a new comet, dubbed C/2025 V1 (Borisov), which is about to make its closest approach to both Earth and the sun. Some researchers have controversially linked it to the current interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS, but there is no association between the two. (Image credit: NASA/JPL)

A never-before-seen comet that shares some minor similarities with the infamous interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is about to make its closest approach to our planet just a few days after it was first spotted speeding toward us.

However, despite some suggestions to the contrary, the newly discovered comet is not related to our current interstellar visitor, and almost certainly originated within the solar system.

The new comet, named C/2025 V1 (Borisov), was first spotted on Nov. 2 by the Crimea-based amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov. It will reach its closest point to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11), when it will reach a minimum distance of 64 million miles (103 million kilometers) from our planet, or around 270 times further away than the moon, according to Orbital Today. It is set to reach its closest point to the sun, or perihelion, on Sunday (Nov. 16).

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C/2025 V1 has an apparent magnitude of around 13.8, making it too faint to be seen with the naked eye. However, the new comet may be visible to stargazers with a decent telescope or a pair of stargazing binoculars. It is currently located in the constellation Virgo and is most clearly visible just before sunrise, according to TheSkyLive.com.

3I/ATLAS is only the third ISO ever detected in the solar system, and the most recent since Comet Borisov in 2019. (This photo of 3I/ATLAS was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in August.) (Image credit: NASA/ESA)

If the name "Borisov" rings a bell, it’s because Gennadiy Borisov also discovered the second-known interstellar object (ISO), dubbed "Comet Borisov," in 2019. Like 3I/ATLAS, which was first spotted in early July, this alien comet was ejected by a faraway star in the Milky Way and sailed through space for billions of years before coincidentally shooting right through our cosmic neighborhood at incredibly high speeds.

This association, along with some additional anomalous characteristics, was enough for some to draw comparisons between C/2025 V1 and 3I/ATLAS. They included the renowned Harvard University astrophysicist and alien-hunter Avi Loeb, who described it as a "nearly interstellar object" in a recent blog post.

How can an object be "nearly interstellar"? It comes down to its orbit. C/2025 V1 is slightly unusual, given its high eccentricity, meaning that it is traveling toward the sun along a very straight trajectory. This is similar to, although not as extreme as, the trajectory of 3I/ATLAS — and is the main reason for the latest comparisons, Loeb wrote. Like in some recent photos of 3I/ATLAS, the new comet also appears to be missing its tail, he added.

C/2025 V1 was discovered while 3I/ATLAS was still temporarily hidden from us, due to it being positioned on the opposite side of the sun to Earth. This has led some new outlets to speculate that C/2025 V1 could be an alien probe that was secretly deployed by its "mothership" 3I/ATLAS, which is a theory that was first postulated by Loeb shortly after the latest ISO was discovered.

However, in his latest post, Loeb downplayed this idea, writing that "C/2025 V1 is not related to 3I/ATLAS if it did not employ non-gravitational propulsion." The distance between the two objects at their minimum separation was also around 140 million miles (225 million km), which is likely too great to explain an association between them, he added.

Avi Loeb was one of the first researchers to suggest that 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft in disguise. He also made similar claims about the first ISO 'Oumuamua back in 2017. (This photo of 3I/ATLAS was taken by the International Gemini Observatory North in July.) (Image credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Shadow the ScientistImage Processing: J. Miller & M. Rodriguez (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab), T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab))

Instead, the new comet likely originates from the Oort Cloud — a giant reservoir of comets and other icy objects located near the outer edge of the solar system. However, its origin point and orbital trajectory have not yet been properly calculated.

As for 3I/ATLAS, the alien comet has now reappeared from its short stint behind the sun, having reached perihelion on Oct. 29. This solar flyby was notable for several other reasons, including an unexpected brightening event and a temporary color change. It has now started its journey back out of the solar system and will reach its closest point to Earth on Dec. 19.

The ISO has displayed a number of other anomalous characteristics, including a highly irradiated surface and a puzzling anti-tail. However, despite what some people claim, there is no reliable evidence that 3I/ATLAS is anything other than a comet — just like C/2025 V1.

This article was downloaded from https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/new-nearly-interstellar-comet-wrongly-linked-to-3i-atlas-will-reach-its-closest-point-to-earth-on-tuesday-nov-11 at Nov 14, 2025 at 11:30 AM EST.

Table of Contents

Live Science: 2025 Nov 14

November 14, 2025

Giant North American 'hell pigs' could crunch bones like lions 30 million years ago, tooth analysis reveals

Eruptions of ocean volcanoes may be the echoes of ancient continental breakups

Chinese astronauts are back on Earth after suspected 'space junk' strike left them stranded in space

Archaeologists discover 1,500-year-old reindeer trap and other artifacts 'melting out of the ice' in Norway's mountains

Science history: Chemists discover buckyballs — the most perfect molecules in existence — Nov. 14, 1985

November 13, 2025

New image of 'other comet ATLAS' reveals it's breaking apart ahead of close approach to Earth

This budget-friendly Fenix 8 alternative hits the lowest-ever price ahead of Black Friday

2 million black 'streaks' on Mars finally have an explanation, solving 50-year mystery

Study reveals why the brain 'zones out' when you're exhausted

Earth's magnetic field has a weak spot — and it's getting bigger, putting astronauts and satellites at risk

New 'Dragon Hatchling' AI architecture modeled after the human brain could be a key step toward AGI, researchers claim

Parts of Arizona are being sucked dry, with areas of land sinking 6 inches per year, satellite data reveals

November 12, 2025

240 million-year-old 'warrior' crocodile ancestor from Pangaea had plated armor — and it looked just like a dinosaur

Underwater volcano off Oregon coast likely won't erupt until mid-to-late 2026

Scientists detect monster blast from nearby star powerful enough to rip the atmosphere off a planet

'Stranded' astronauts aboard Chinese space station are preparing to come home — but no date has been announced

Blue Origin New Glenn rocket: New launch window for historic Mars mission after solar storm delay

Brain benefits of exercise come from the bloodstream — and they may be transferrable, mouse study finds

Ancient DNA reveals mysterious Indigenous lineage that lived in Argentina for nearly 8,500 years — but rarely interacted with others

New antivenom works against 17 dangerous African snake species, study suggests

Exotic 'time crystals' could be used as memory in quantum computers, promising research finds

James Webb telescope may have found the first stars in the universe, new study claims

Diagnostic dilemma: A woman's homemade juice led to life-threatening 'toxic squash syndrome'

Tiny spiders that build giant 'puppet' decoys from disembodied prey discovered in Peru and Philippines

November 11, 2025

'Severe' solar storm brings auroras as far south as Florida — and more are on the way tonight

Astronomers detect first 'radio signal' from interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS — but it wasn't aliens

No, comet 3I/ATLAS hasn't exploded — and no, that doesn't mean it's an alien spaceship

Newly discovered toads skip the tadpole stage and give birth to live 'toadlets'

Gold and gems quiz: What do you know about sparkly treasures made by nature?

Prehistoric Jomon people in Japan had 'little to no' DNA from the mysterious Denisovans, study finds

Scientists create world's first microwave-powered computer chip — it's much faster and consumes less power than conventional CPUs

This week's Leonid meteor shower could be one of the best in years. Here's why.

Extreme 'paradise' volcano in Costa Rica is like a piece of ancient Mars on our doorstep — Earth from space

For the first time, physicists peer inside the nucleus of a molecule using electrons as a probe

Science history: Russian mathematician quietly publishes paper — and solves one of the most famous unsolved conjectures in mathematics — Nov. 11, 2002

November 10, 2025

2,300-year-old tool used for skull surgery unearthed at Celtic settlement in Poland

Canada has lost its 'measles elimination status' — here's what that means

New 'nearly interstellar' comet — wrongly linked to 3I/ATLAS — will reach its closest point to Earth on Tuesday (Nov. 11)