Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found an enormous black hole in the early Universe that appears to predate its own host galaxy, raising fresh questions about how the cosmos’ first supermassive monsters were born. This Webb/NIRCam image shows the little red dot Abell2744-QSO1, magnified and triply imaged by galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Image credit: NASA / ESA /...

New observations from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft reveal that the Zwan-Wolf effect — a phenomenon once thought unique to Earth’s magnetosphere, in which charged particles are squeezed like toothpaste coming out of a tube along magnetic structures called flux tubes — is also reshaping the Red Planet’s upper atmosphere. An artistic representation...

For more than four and a half millennia, the Khufu Pyramid has stood on the Giza plateau, enduring dozens of earthquakes without serious structural damage. New research led by Egypt’s National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics offers a quantitative explanation for this remarkable durability. It shows that the structure’s natural vibration frequencies differ sharply from those of...

By studying fungal microfossils in 66-million-year-old rock samples from the Denver Basin in Colorado, Johns Hopkins University microbiologists have confirmed that the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact triggered a worldwide fungal takeover, and uncovered a second, previously unknown ecological crisis just before it. The end-Cretaceous mass extinction was marked by both the Chicxulub asteroid impact...

A marine biologist studying the photophores of a bioluminescent fish species found needle-shaped guanine crystals that scatter and redirect light instead of merely reflecting it, a discovery that could inspire more efficient biomedical and optical devices. Sigmops gracilis. Image credit: Wu Quancheng / Fisheries Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Taiwan. Approximately 75% of marine organisms...

Mathematicians from University College London and the University of California, Davis, have published a mathematical proof that the Universe’s accelerating expansion can be explained without dark energy, dealing a serious blow to the Lambda-cold dark matter model — the standard cosmological model that has stood for nearly 30 years. Alexander et al. provide a mathematical proof that instabilities...

In a small clinical trial, researchers at the Ohio State University found that a tomato juice rich in lycopene and soy isoflavones lowered several proteins linked to chronic inflammation, raising hopes for food-based therapies. Tomato-soy juice contains high levels of lycopene and soy isoflavones. “The idea is, can we use food-based interventions to modulate inflammation?” said Dr. Jessica Cooperstone,...

Scientists have extracted and analyzed proteins from the tooth enamel of six Homo erectus individuals who lived in China roughly 400,000 years ago, offering an unprecedented glimpse into the genetic makeup of one of humanity’s most successful and far-ranging ancestors. Their results suggest that Homo erectus may have carried genetic variants that were later passed to Denisovans and eventually...

Unusual gases rising from geothermal springs within the Kafue Rift of Zambia suggest a deep fracture in Earth’s crust could mark the early stages of a new tectonic boundary. Location map of the extensional zone within the Central African Plateau of Zambia. The Kafue Rift is connected to the Luano and Luangwa rifts to the NE, and the Western branch of the EARS at the Rukwa rift (RRB) and Rungwe...

Mathematicians from University College London and the University of California, Davis, have published a mathematical proof that the Universe’s accelerating expansion can be explained without dark energy, dealing a serious blow to the Lambda-cold dark matter model — the standard cosmological model that has stood for nearly 30 years. Alexander et al. provide a mathematical proof that instabilities...