What makes lithium-ion batteries fail? Microscopic metal thorns give leads to scientists

Posted on March 16, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

This is the first time that scientists have observed the growth of tiny metal thorns known as dendrites grow within lithium-ion batteries thus making the batteries short-circuit. Their results published Mar. 12 in the journal Science illuminate the hitherto unrecognized mechanical aspects of the lithium dendrites during their development.

Lithium dendrites have been the subject of study of scientists since a long time, yet their behavior within batteries has not been well understood. Dendrites are developed at the nanoscale; development is difficult to monitor in a closed system such as a working battery, but has been associated with battery degradation and failure.

The new work, an international alliance of scholars at the U.S. and Singapore universities, simulated and experimented and came up with the first view on how dendrites crystalize, according to co-lead author Xing Liu, an assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology and head of the NJIT Computational Mechanics and Physics Lab.

He says that it is a result of a close collaboration between experimental and computational mechanics and possibly could be used to make batteries safer.

Co-author Qing Ai, a former research scientist at Rice University, says: “The basic nanomechanical behavior of lithium dendrites has been a riddle of decades.”

Customized platforms
Lithium dendrites (named after the Latin word for branch) are about 100 times narrower than the thickness of a human hair and they are spouting out of anodes, which are negative terminals in lithium-ion batteries. The branches of dendrites may extend into an electrolyte in a lithium cell; in case the dendrites run to the negatively charged anode, and extend to the positively charged cathode, they may short out the battery.

Lithium dendrites are commonly known to be one of the largest impediments to commercialization of lithium-metal batteries, Liu says. Under battery operation, it is possible to have lithium dendrites form, break and be electrically isolated to the lithium metal anode to form so-called dead lithium. This is what causes a progressive depletion of battery capacity with time. Moreover, the dendrites may tunnel through the separator, and form an internal short between the anode and cathode. Capacity loss and short-circuit dendrite risks tend to be common in laboratory experiments.

Better still, lithium dendrites become almost impossible to eliminate in a battery once they develop.

At this point in time, says Liu, “there is no empirical way to cleanse dendrites of a working battery cell.”

In the new study, scientists at the Rice University together with their counterparts in Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Houston and the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore extracted dendrites of working batteries to see whether they were mechanically strong or not.

“In order to make the quantitative study of lithium dendrites possible, we constructed specialized sample preparation and mechanical characterization stations of such delicate work,” says Boyu Zhang, a Rice doctoral graduate and a co-lead author on the work.

Rice Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering co-corresponding author Jun Lou headed a team at the Nanomaterials, Nanomechanics and Nanodevices lab in performing a direct probe into the mechanical behavior of dendrites as they grew in real batteries. The extremely delicate experiments were done by Ai and Zhang, former members of the lab of Lou with the help of study co-corresponding author Hua Guo and co-author Wenhua Guo of the Rice University Shared Equipment Authority.

In order to execute the experiments, they made air-tight platforms to prepare and study the samples since lithium is a highly reactive element that changes chemically and structurally due to the amount of air it is exposed to. The nature of the deformation of individual dendrites to controlled stresses was then exposed using high-resolution electron microscopy.

‘Like dry spaghetti’

Lithium bulk is soft and cushy; the dendrites of lithium, consequently, were supposed to be soft as well. The experiments however indicated otherwise. This observation of the failure of dendrites in real-time under the operation of a battery through the University of Houston team under the leadership of one of the co-corresponding authors Yan Yao, a professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, supported the idea that dendrites are brittle in liquid as well as solid electrolyte systems.

Liu says that for long it has been thought that the lithium dendrites are soft and ductile, resembling Play-Doh. However, it seems to us that they can be tough and brittle, too, and break like dry spaghetti.

Data on the observations was then modeled and theoretically analyzed by teams of NJIT and Georgia Tech.

To answer the question, Liu says that they did scale-bridging simulations to understand the reason lithium dendrites act contrary to expectations.

They discovered that when dendrites are growing in a battery cell, they will be covered by a thin coating of solid electrolyte interphase, known as SEI. The SEI coating causes the dendrites to become rigid and needle like and are able to pierce battery cells separators and electrolytes and are likely to break under stress and accumulate in the battery cell as lithium dead time fragments and lead to battery failure.

Liu explains that by knowing about the physics behind it, soon it will be possible to develop methods of making dendrites less susceptible to brittle fracture, such as; utilizing lithium alloy anodes. To scholars in the field of computational mechanics, the mechanisms to be found in the experiment, like the way that structures defame, or the reasons why they break and break down, are like musical notes and can be added to a symphony of high-performance materials and high-energy storage systems.

“The strengthening mechanism we identified in lithium dendrites adds a new note to this composition,” Liu says.

The Sun is Just a Secret Earthquake Machine with switch: Reveals Japan Study

How moss led to the solving a grave-robbing mystery

Posted on March 14, 2026 by Sridhar P

In 2009, a cemetery, located directly outside of Chicago, revealed a scandal. The employees at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois had been accused of digging up aged graves, shifting the remains to other places within the cemetery and selling the burial plots back. One such piece of evidence was a small knot of moss when the case went to trial in 2015.

Researchers have published the original full scientific account of the case in a new article in the journal Forensic Sciences Research where it is described how exactly moss was used to find that a crime had been committed.

The lead author of the paper, Matt von Konrat, the head of the botany collections at the Field Museum in Chicago, is a follower of detective programs on television (the new paper is called Silent Witness on the BBC), but he never thought that his work would bring him into a criminal case scenario. Around 2009, von Konrat received a call on the phone, which happened to be the FBI, inquiring whether she could assist in identifying a few plants, says von Konrat. The FBI appeared at the Field Museum and gave von Konrat a piece of moss which was discovered eight inches under the earth, and the recovered human remains at the cemetery.

What sort of moss it was, and how long it had been lying in the soil, they wanted to know.

First, von Konrat and his associates had looked at the moss under a microscope and compared it with dried moss specimens in museum collections to conclude that it was taxifolius Fissidens, which is also referred to as a common pocket moss. According to von Konrat, they conducted a survey of the various types of mosses found in different locations around the site of the crime and that type of moss was not present in the area. However, examining the remainder of the cemetery we discovered a large colony of that form of moss growing in the same spot where the investigator thought that the bones had been disturbed.

The investigators did not only require the species of the moss, however, they were also concerned about its age. The defendants to the case argued that someone must have exhumed the bones and reburied them at a later time prior to the defendants commencing working in the cemetery. As the moss was buried with the re-buried bones, the length of time that the moss had been under the ground would be used to help prove the date that the bones were reburied.

“Moss,” says von Konrat, “is a bit of a freak. Mosses are intriguingly physiologically regulated so that although they may be dry and lifeless and preserved, still they may have an active metabolism and some active cells. The level of metabolic activity decays with time, and that would inform us about when a moss sample was harvested.”

The metabolic activity of a plant may be determined by its chlorophyll – the green color that is used to photosynthesize the food. The chlorophyll in the cells of plants deteriorates as they die and more of the cells of plants lose the ability to perform their functions. The authors of the research determined the quantity of the light captured by chlorophyll of the moss specimens in known ages, including fresh and those that have been stashed in the museum collections over the past 14 years. Then they repeated the same test on the moss that was picked at the crime scene. The researchers concluded that the evidence moss was no more than a year or two old- which helped the case against the cemetery employees who in 2015 were finally found guilty of desecrating human remains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_Oak_Cemetery

“Occasionally, there are also cases when the FBI only has to summon experts to assist in the gathering of evidence, conduct analyses, submit the evidence to the prosecutors and testify to their efforts should a conviction be required. Burr Oak Cemetery case was one of those cases when we approached the Chicago Field Museum Botanical Program, which happened to be of invaluable help since plant material within the cemetery provided the key to charge four individuals and convict them,” says Doug Seccombe, a former FBI agent and worked on the case, as well as, a co-author of the new paper.

Von Konrat has been consulted after the Burr Oak Cemetery case on a number of moss cases. However, these cases are quite few in the field of forensic science: in 2025, he and some of his co-authors released another article, looking into the application of mosses and other bryophyte plants as forensic evidence. It was only within the last century that they had discovered a dozen-odd examples.

“Mosses are usually underrated and that is how we hope our research will help to create awareness that there are other groups of plants out there other than flowering plants and they play a very crucial role in society and around us. However, most to the point, we wish to mention this microscopic group of plants as a law enforcement tool. Should we find the means of raising mosses as possible evidence, perhaps this might prove of service to some families in the future.”

What are the conditions suitable for life on distant moons

Posted on March 14, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

Liquid water is said to be a necessity to life. Amazingly, however, there could be conducive conditions of life far away in an area that is not near a sun. A group of researchers working on the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has demonstrated how moons of free-floating planets can retain their water oceans as liquid to as long as 4.3 billion years through dense hydrogen atmospheres and tidal heating – that is to say, roughly as long as Earth has been around and complex life can evolve.

Planetary systems are usually created when the conditions are not steady. In the event of close approach of young planets they have the ability to launch one another out of orbit. This results in free-floating planets (FFPs) that move around the galaxy with no parent star. A previous paper by LMU physicist Dr. Giulia Roccetti had indicated that gas giants that were thrown out in this manner do not always lose their moons in the process.

Oceans remain in their liquid state because of tidal heating

The ejection however does change the orbits of the moons. They are elongated to a high extent in which their distance to the planet is constantly varying. This leads to the tidal forces rhythmically deforming the lunar body, compressing the body interior, and creating heat due to friction. This tidal heating can be adequate to keep oceans of liquid water on the surface – without the power of a star, and in the coolness of interstellar space.

Hydrogen as stable heat trap

It is the atmosphere that dictates whether this heat remains on the surface or not. Carbon dioxide is a good greenhouse gas on earth. Prior research had shown that carbon dioxide would be able to stabilize life-supportable conditions on exomoons of up to 1.6 billion years. In really low temperatures of free-floating systems, however, carbon dioxide would condense, lose the protective effect on the atmosphere and the heat to escape.

Thus, the scientists of astrophysics, biophysics, and astrochemistry started to research the possibilities of the hydrogen-rich atmospheres being the alternative heat traps. Despite the fact that the molecular hydrogen is mostly transparent to infrared radiation, an important physical phenomenon occurs under high pressures: collision-induced absorption. During this process, hydrogen colliding molecules create temporary complexes, which are able to take up the thermal radiation and store it in the atmosphere. Simultaneously, hydrogen is a stable element even at the lowest temperature.

Parallels to early Earth

The results also provide new insights to the origin of life. The cooperation with the team of Professor Dieter Braun enabled us to understand that the cradle of life does not always need a sun, says David Dahlbudding who is a doctoral researcher at LMU and the lead author of the study. According to the case, there was a distinct relationship between these moons that were far away and the early Earth, which had high levels of hydrogen due to asteroid impact in order to form conditions that supported life.

The tidal force was even capable of providing heat, as well as, chemical development processes. There is deformation periodically, which produces local wet-dry cycles, where water evaporates and condenses. These cycles have been regarded as a significant process of the formation of complex molecules and may make essential steps in the direction to the emergence of life.

Life-friendly moons in interstellar space

The free-floating planets are believed to be common. It has been estimated that these so-called nomadic planets in the Milky Way may be as numerous as the stars. Their moons could also offer long term stable habitats. The new discoveries were therefore able to considerably expand the range of potential habitats in which life might exist – and indicate that life would not only exist but also be able to survive even in the darkest parts of the galaxy.

Watching water droplets merge on the International Space Station

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Better brain health is linked with the enhancement of your biological age gap

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

The narrower the difference between your biological age and actual age the lower the risk of a stroke and the health of your brain.
The study involved 250,000 people. The scientists measured the level of 18 biomarkers in their blood to obtain their biological age. Brain scans were also done to a section of individuals.
Individuals that bridged the difference between their biological and chronological ages during the intervention were 23% less likely than the rest to experience a stroke in the future.
The research does not demonstrate that the reduction of the age gap is the reason of the reduced stroke risk and positive brain health changes. It only shows an association.
According to researchers, a healthy diet, regular exercise, proper sleep and blood pressure management can contribute to the age gap in the biology of the body, although this study has not assessed any lifestyle program.
The article is a preliminary study published in March of 2026 will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 78th Annual Meeting in April 18-22, 2026 in Chicago. It found that the closer your biological age is to your chronological age, the lower the risk of stroke and the better the signs of damage in the brain.

Betterment of age gap

The research does not demonstrate that betterment of the age gap is the reason behind better brain health; it only presents a correlation.

The researcher Cyprien Rivier of Yale University and an American Academy of Neurology member, said that efforts to “change our biological age may be one of the ways to help our brains stay healthy. Lifestyle habit, such as healthy diet, physical activity, sleep and good blood pressure management, which can help to prevent cardiovascular and metabolic disease, might help reduce the biological age difference, but we did not assess lifestyle interventions in the study.”

In the study, the biological age of 258,169 individuals of a health care research database was analyzed. They quantified 18 biomarkers in the blood, including cholesterol, average red blood cell volume and white blood cell count, to assess biological age at the beginning of the study and six years later in a sub-group of the participants. Researchers then found the participants who had a stroke after an average of 10 years. A group of the participants also administered tests on memory and thinking ability and brain scans to examine indications of brain damage.

In the beginning of the study, the biological age of the participants was 54 on average and their real age was 56. Their actual age was 62 years but on average, they were 58 years biologically six years on.

Individuals whose biological age was more than their chronological age at the conclusion of the study exhibited poorer brain scans and also poorer scores in the cognitive tests. They were also at a higher risk of stroke by 41 percent.

Those who lengthened the distance between their biological and chronological ages between the beginning of the study and the repeat measure had their risks of developing a stroke in the follow-up phase reduced by 23%.

Individuals who had some improvement also contained a smaller amount of white matter hyperintensities, an indicator of tissue damage to the white matter, by the conclusion of the study compared to those who had no amelioration in their biological age gaps. The overall amount of damage that they could do was 13 per cent less with each standard deviation of progress.

These outcomes factored in other factors that might influence the risk of stroke and damage to the brain including high blood pressure and other blood vessels conditions and socioeconomic outcomes.

Study’s Insufficiency

One of the weaknesses of the research was that although it identified correlations, it was not a causal study. In addition, only a smaller number underwent repeat blood tests and this does not allow the researcher to draw conclusions of change over time especially on cognitive tests.

The Cannabis compounds are promising in the battle against fatty liver disease

Posted on March 13, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

Scientists have found out that non-psychoactive cannabis substances, CBD and CBG, can help to reduce liver fat significantly and improve metabolic health. The researchers have found out that these compounds act by establishing a buffer of energy in the liver and by the re-activation of the cleaning crews inside the cells to clear undesirable waste products. These results point to the existence of a novel, plant-based direction of treating the most frequent chronic liver disease of the world.

According to a study by Prof. Joseph (Yossi) Tam, Dr. Liad Hinden, a PhD student, Radka Kocvarova, and the team of researchers led by Tam, at the School of Pharmacy in the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, two compounds of the cannabis plant are useful in the treatment of fatty liver disease. The study indicates that the non-psychoactive and non-high-inducing Cannabidiol (CBD) and Cannabigerol (CBG) can help people live healthier lives due to its ability to alter how the liver processes energy and purifies itself.

The prevalent chronic liver disorder in the world is currently known as Maatotic asymptomatic liver disease (MASLD) which is associated with metabolic dysfunction. It is prevalent among about 1 in 3 adults, and strongly associated with obesity, hypertension and insulin resistance. Although lifestyle change such as diet and exercise is significant, it is not always easier to sustain it and known medicines approved to treat this condition are very limited. This renders the discovery of new medicines a top priority to the scientists.

The researchers demonstrated that CBD and CBG are not only fat-reducing tools with the help of sophisticated tools. In fact, they assist the liver to work more efficiently internally in a special mechanism of metabolic remodeling. The effect on the energy stores of the liver was identified as one of the most crucial findings. The compounds cause a rise in phosphocreatine levels which serve as a backup battery to keep the liver healthy despite the stress which is posed by high-fat diet. It is a novel finding because the liver is not normally dependent on such a system of energy in a heavy way.

Reinstate functions of cathepsins

Also, the experiment revealed that CBD and CBG reinstate the functions of cathepsins. They are enzymes that serve as the cleaning crew in the recycling centers of the cell and they are called lysosomes. With the help of getting this cleaning crew back at work the liver is able to better process and eliminate the harmful fats and waste. Another finding by the researchers was that the two treatments had significant lowering effects on the harmful lipids, including triglycerides and ceramides. Ceramides are those that are especially harmful since they have been identified to cause insulin resistance and liver inflammation.

The research found out that both compounds were useful but they had a slight difference in terms of benefit to metabolic health. CBD and CBG could all normalise blood sugar levels and enhance the glucose clearance in the body. Nevertheless, CBG seemed to influence some measures more strongly. It was much more effective in fat mass reduction in the body and insulin sensitivity than CBD. The CBG was also especially useful in reducing the total cholesterol and the bad LDL cholesterol levels.

Prof. Joseph Tam ssaid, “the findings of the research point to a new mechanism through which CBD and CBG improve the hepatic energy and lysosomal activity. Such dual metabolic remodelling results in a better process of lipids in liver and singling out such compounds as likely treatment options in MASLD.”

Though these findings are highly encouraging, the staff remarks that additional studies are required in order to comprehend how these findings can be optimally applied to human patients. The research provides a novel avenue in the use of plant-derived compounds to treat metabolic diseases because it is based on the energy and waste management in cells.

New NASA DART mission data reveals asteroids throw ‘cosmic snowballs’ at each other

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Bharath Panchajanya

Binary asteroid systems are not uncommon in our cosmic neighborhood with about 15 percent of asteroids around the Earth having small moons around them.

A team of astronomers (headed by the University of Maryland) has since found that these binary asteroid systems are much more dynamic than they thought- involving active exchange of rocks and dust in slow, slow-motion collisions that reform them over millions of years.

Upon the analysis of the images captured by the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft just before deliberately colliding with the asteroid moon Dimorphos in 2022, the team observed bright, fan-shaped streaks across the surface of the moon, which is the first direct evidence of the material naturally traveling between two asteroids. The implications of the findings given by the researchers in The Planetary Science Journal on March 6, 2026, regarding the information about asteroids that may pose a threat to the earth are far reaching.

Initially, we assumed that it must have been a problem with the camera, then we assumed it must have been a problem with our processing of the images, said the lead author of the paper, Jessica Sunshine, a professor with joint appointments in both the Department of Astronomy and Department of Geological, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences of UMD. However, once we cleared it up we found the marks we were observing were quite regular with respect to low velocity collisions, such as tossing cosmic snowballs. We possessed the first direct evidence of material movement within the recent past in a binary asteroid system.

The results of the team were also the first, visual confirmation of the Yarkovsky-O Keefe Radzievskii Paddak (YORP) effect wherein small asteroids rapidly rotate due to the presence of sunlight, causing material to be thrown off their surfaces to form moons. This was probably true of Didymos and its smaller satellite Dimorphos in the case of Sunshine reported the remnants of the so-called cosmic snowballs which had been deposited on the surface of Dimorphos.

How they found these traces?

They took months of investigative efforts to find these traces. The original images captured by the DART spacecraft could not see the fan-shaped streaks yet, UMD astronomy research scientist Tony Farnham and former postdoctoral researcher Juan Rizos developed more intricate methods to eliminate the boulder shadow and lightning effects in the images and exposed the eye-opening streaks that were left behind by the ‘cosmic snowballs’.

We finally saw these rays wrapping round Dimorphos, something no one has ever seen, you see, Farnham said. At the initial stages, it could not be believed because it was gentle and distinct.

To the researchers, the path of the DART mission provided a peculiar challenge. The space ship flew directly into the target with only slight distinctions in lighting and viewpoint that made it hard to differentiate actual features and any potential lighting possibilities. To demonstrate the authenticity of the streaks the team traced them to the source in one of the areas near the edge of Dimorphos- clearly out of phase with where the sun was overhead. Having done this, the team came to the conclusion that the traces left by the so-called cosmic snowballs were not really a light illusion.

Not fainter as we smoothed out the 3D image of the moon the fan-shaped streaks became more distinct, Farnham said. “It made us sure that we were dealing with a reality.

Earlier researchers noted an indirect evidence of the sunlight causing small asteroids to spin faster triggering the expulsion of material off their surfaces. However, the recently perfected models of the asteroid moon Dimorphos created by the UMD team give the first graphic assurance of the process and the precise sites of the shed material of its original asteroid, Didymos. Additional calculations by UMD alumnus Harrison Agrusa (M.S. ’19, Ph.D. ’22, astronomy) also indicated that the material moved Didymos at 30.7 centimeters per second, which is slower than the typical pace of a human walking.

Fan-shaped marks

“That would be why it had the fan-shaped marks,” Sunshine said. “These slow moving effects would not cause a crater as they would cause a deposit instead of being evenly distributed. And they are focused on the equator as theorized on modeling material ripped off the primary.”

The researchers headed by the former UMD postdoctoral associate Esteban Wright conducted a battery of experiments in their laboratories to test their hypotheses at the UMD Institute of Physical Science and Technology. To replicate boulders on Dimorphos, they tossed marbles into a sand filled with painted gravel. The experiment was recorded with high-speed cameras, and it was found that boulders filtered some material and allowed other particles to stream in-between the boulders- forming ray-like patterns similar to those found on Dimorphos.

The results were verified in computer simulations of effects of loose clumps of dust done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The shape of the fan-shaped rays on the surface of the asteroid was naturally formed by boulders that formed the cosmic snowballs on the surface of the asteroid whether the impactor was a compact rock such as the marble or a loose clump of material.

These marks could be seen on Dimorphos in that film taken by the DART spacecraft immediately before the large collision, evidence that there was an exchange of material between it and Didymos, said Sunshine. The fan line deposit must stretch up to the side of the moon that we did not strike and there is a chance that it was not smashed in by the blow.

These features could be found to be still present on Didymos as the Hera mission of the European Space Agency will possibly arrive in December 2026 and see them. Sunshine and her colleagues give an estimate as to how Hera will also witness new ray patterns formed when boulders are struck by the DART spacecraft, knocking them loose, which gives them a different perspective of the asteroids that have the potential to threaten the earth.

According to Sunshine, these new findings which arise out of this research play a critical part in our knowledge about the near-Earth asteroids and their evolutionary patterns. It has been discovered that they are much more dynamic than we thought before and this will assist us in streamlining our models and our planetary defense efforts.

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Oval orbit casts new light on black hole, neutron star mergers

Posted on March 12, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

Scientists have uncovered the first robust evidence of a black hole and neutron star crashing together but orbiting in an oval path rather than a perfect circle just before they merged. This discovery challenges long-standing assumptions about how these cosmic pairs form and evolve.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics published their findings today (11 Mar) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Most neutron star-black hole pairs are expected to adopt circular orbits long before merging. But the analysis of the gravitational-wave event GW200105 shows that this system travelled on an oval orbit long before merging to form a black hole 13 times more massive than the Sun. An oval orbit is something never seen before in this kind of collision.

Dr Patricia Schmidt, from the University of Birmingham, said: “This discovery gives us vital new clues about how these extreme objects come together. It tells us that our theoretical models are incomplete and raises fresh questions about where in the Universe such systems are born.”

The researchers analysed data from LIGO and Virgo detectors using a new gravitational‑wave model developed at the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy. This allowed them to measure both how ‘oval’ the orbit was (eccentricity) and any spin‑induced wobbling (precession). This is the first time these two effects have been measured together in a neutron star–black hole event.

Geraint Pratten, a Royal Society University Research Fellow from the University of Birmingham, said: “The orbit gives the game away. Its elliptical shape just before merger shows this system did not evolve quietly in isolation but was almost certainly shaped by gravitational interactions with other stars, or perhaps a third companion.”

A Bayesian analysis comparing thousands of theoretical predictions to the real data, showed that a circular orbit is extremely unlikely, ruling it out with 99.5% confidence.

Past analyses of GW200105, which assumed a circular orbit, underestimated the black hole mass and overestimated the neutron star mass. The new study corrects these values and finds no compelling evidence of precession, indicating that the eccentricity was imprinted by its formation rather than by spins.

Gonzalo Morras, from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, said: “This is convincing proof that not all neutron star–black hole pairs share the same origin. The eccentric orbit suggests a birthplace in an environment where many stars interact gravitationally.”

This discovery challenges the prevailing view that all neutron star–black hole mergers arise from a single dominant formation channel and highlights the need for more advanced waveform models capable of capturing the full complexity of these systems.

The study helps to explain the growing diversity seen in compact-binary mergers and opens the door to identifying even more unusual pathways as the number of gravitational-wave detections continues to grow.

Less psychedelic, more medical magic mushrooms

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

The psychoactive substance of magic mushrooms, psilocybin, is under scientific scrutiny as being useful in the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, substance use disorder and some neurodegenerative diseases. It can be limited to broader therapeutic uses, however, by the hallucinogenic effects. A study on the effects of psilocin, the active compound in psilocybin, on mice published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry by researchers synthesized modified versions of psilocin which preserve its properties but have fewer hallucinogenic-like effects than pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin.

In line with the emerging scientific view that psychedelic and serotonergic works can be decoupled, one correspondent author of the study, Andrea Mattarei, states that their findings align with this emerging school of thought. This creates the prospect of developing new therapies that are more biologically active but less hallucinogenic, which might allow developing safer and more practicable treatment options.

Mood disorders as well as certain neurodegenerative ailments such as the Alzheimer disease entail an imbalance of the neurotransmitter molecule serotonin that aids in controlling moods and other brain processes. Psychedelics have been studied to have therapeutic effects against serotonin-signaling pathways in decades by scientists. But the hallucinations that can be used along with these drugs can cause people to fear their use even in case there is a medical advantage.

Brain Image (NIH)

Therefore, a group supervised by Sara De Martin, Mattarei and Paolo Manfredi chemically engineered 5 psilocin analogs to release gradually, slowly and possibly non-hallucinogenic into the brain. The initial test of the five compounds was conducted using human plasma samples and the laboratory parameters that replicate gastrointestinal absorption. These tests have enabled the group to determine a compound they refer to as 4e as the best prospect since it exhibited desirable stability to be absorbed and allowed a slow release of psilocin – a trait that has the potential to reduce the effects of hallucinations. Notably, 4e was also active at major serotonin receptors, and at similar levels as psilocin.

The researchers then compared the impact of the same dosage of 4e on mice with pharmaceutical quality psilocybin. The team orally gave the compounds to mice and assessed the degree to which psilocin was absorbed by the bloodstream and the brain after 48 hours. The compound had the capability of penetrating the blood-brain barrier in mice treated with 4e and had a lower yet more prolonged presence of psilocin in their brain than did their psilocybin-treated counterparts. In examining the behavior of the mice, the researchers found that the 4e-treated mice had reduced the number of head twitches, a well-established oral psychiatric effect of psychedelics in rodents, with the 4e-treated mice compared to those treated with psilocybin having far fewer head twitches. This difference in behavior seemed to be linked with the quantity and the time that psilocin was released in the brain.

According to the researchers, the results of their experiments testify to the possibility of creating stable derivatives of psilocin penetrating the brain and preserving the function of serotonin receptors without acute psychotropic effects. Their mechanism of action and complete description of their biological effects will require further research before their therapeutic capacity and safety in human beings are evaluated.

The authors admit MGGM Therapeutics, LLC. funding in partnership with NeuroArbor Therapeutics Inc. Some of the authors state that they are patent holders regarding psilocin.

Australian researchers construct tiny AI chip that ‘travels’ at the speed of light

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Naresh Kumar

Australian scientists have developed a miniature-sized artificial intelligence (AI) chip that can perform computations based on the power of light, on a speed comparable to that of light.

The prototype of nano photonic chip, which uses the power of the light particles (photons) is entirely in-house in the Sydney Nano Hub in the University of Sydney.

According to the researchers, the prototype can be significant in creating more energy-efficient hardware in the field of artificial intelligence because the global demand of artificial intelligence is still increasing and such technology might reduce the total energy footprint of future computer systems.

Conventional computer chips are made using electricity to control information; that is, to move tiny and charged particles (electrons) with wire. This produces heat.

The prototype of nano photonic chip utilizes light. Light is able to pass through electrically non-resistant materials and hence does not produce heat in the same manner as electricity. The calculation is automatically done through the nanostructures as the light traverses the chip prototype.

The nanostructure of the chip occupies tens of micrometres, the thickness of a human hair. The combination of the nanostructures assists in creating a neural network: the artificial neurons that imitate the human brain to recognise and perform calculations.

The prototype is capable of calculations at the picosecond level, trillionths of a second – the duration in which light exits the nanostructure.

According to the researchers, the benefits of photonics use is that it is much faster and occurs at the speed of light. Light is also used to run the technology as opposed to electricity. This is in comparison to the existing data centres that use huge quantities of water and energy to operate them.

Professor Xiaoke Yi of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Photonics Research Group said that they had re-imagined how the photonics can be used to create new energy efficient and ultrafast computer processing chips.

Artificial intelligence becomes more or less limited to the energy consumption. This study carries out neural computation with light, which has been demonstrated to be faster, more energy-saving and can be made significantly smaller AI accelerators.

The study was published in Nature Communications, and it illustrates that AI models could be made into nanoscale photonic structures capable of manipulating light in such a way that the mathematical operations necessary to carry out machine learning could be implemented.

The researchers tested the nanophotonic chip by training it on over 10,000 biomedical images (breast, chest and abdomen MRI scans, etc.) and validated the technology.

The nanophotonic neural network demonstrated an approximation of 90 to 99 percent classification in simulations and experiments.

The technology provides a way forward to sustainable AI infrastructure which can facilitate the increasing needs of computing without the proportional increase in power usage.

Better, faster, stronger AI hardware

The science of light particles control is known as photonics, which is abbreviated to photon-based electronics. It has been applied in driving technology that is utilized in day-to-day lives like lasers, fiber-optic network and in medical imaging.

However, the harnessing of photonics to computer processing has been a relatively recent discovery and there has been a growing acuity as the need to harness AI demands grows.

The prototype demonstrates how intelligence can be incorporated directly in nanoscale photonic structures, according to PhD student Joel Sved who was instrumental in design and implementation of the prototype.

The Photonics Research Group of the University of Sydney has a long history of over 10 years of research on how to push the limits of photonics as well as how to upgrade our technology.

It involves application of photonics in solving problems in wireless communications and high-technology sensing that are able to detect and measure chemical or biological traces in the environment.

After the successful experiment with the prototype of the nanophotonic chip, the team headed by Professor Yi is currently developing the technology to the level of larger-scale photonic neural networks.

Europe Deforestation to Double, Predicts AI Study Citing Fires, Storms and Bark Beetles

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Arun Kumar N

A new study estimated the extent to which the area covered by Europe in forest could be disturbed by fire, storms, and bark beetles by the year 2100 in varying climate conditions. With satellite data and forest simulations, an artificial intelligence model predicted the disturbances on a continental scale using 13,000 points in Europe.

In every case, disturbances of the forests in the future were greater than it is today, with great impact on forests and services to the society.
There is a significant effect of wildfires, storms, and even bark beetles on forests and the benefits that they bring to people and environment.

This is the first time when a big international team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has computed how disrupts would alter the forests in Europe in the year 2100. In even the most optimistic of scenarios, the team does project a significant expansion of the damaged forest area, in the worst case, the disturbance might even be doubled.

It is not novel that trees die, and in fact, it is a normal process in the forest that is in the process of natural dynamics whereby old trees die, young trees regenerate and become the next generation of canopy trees.

The new thing is the magnitude of how wildfires, storms, and bark beetles are transforming forests due to the change of climate. The amount of forest destruction in Central Europe demonstrated dramatic figures in recent years, however until this time it was unknown how much the area covered by forests could be deterred by future disturbances. The disturbances define the carbon storage capacity of the forests, the timber they are capable of offering, and the habitats of which species they are able to offer, thus making the results very significant to the policymakers and society.

A great number of researchers headed by Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management, Rupert Seidl, TUM, has now filled this gap in knowledge. The researchers have approximated that, the space disrupted by fires, storms, and bark beetles might increase threefold by 2100 with a global warming of slightly above 4 degrees Celsius.

The researchers used remote sensed data as a reference point between 1986 and 2020, a timeframe that experienced abnormally high disturbance in the forests. Although it is in the best scenario, the researchers are projecting increased destruction of forests in future compared to this reference period even with the warming of about 2 degrees Celsius.

Regional differences

In combination with 13,000 simulations of forests in Europe, the model was an AI-based simulation, which was trained on 135 million data points of forest simulations and multi-decadal satellite data of forest disturbances. This enabled them to model how the forests would develop in future and how disturbances would occur and penetrate to the scale of a single hectare providing very accurate information on regional variation in future forest disturbance patterns.

A view of Białowieża Forest, Belarus-Poland. CREDIT: IUCN Elena Osipova

The study has indicated that forests in Southern and Western Europe will be affected especially and will experience the strongest forest disturbances.

The overall impact of the future on Northern Europe is less expected to be severe, though the hotspots of the future forest damage are predicted to appear as well. According to Rupert Seidl, disturbances are becoming a cross-regional problem, that is, they destroy timber markets in Europe and endanger the ecosystem services that forests bring to society.

The study authors hence regard the growing disturbance rates as being an urgent demand on forest policy and management to consider: “We should be ready to witness a lot of forest damage in the near future. On the one hand, this implies that we have to prepare and cushion against more severe changes in the services forests offer. Conversely, disruptions also provide a chance to create new and climate-resistant forests – they are agents of change,” said Seidl.

Forestry has to meet the threat and the opportunity of increasing the level of disturbance, with the help of new scientific techniques and knowledge, explained Seidl.

The Sun is Just a Secret Earthquake Machine with switch: Reveals Japan Study

Posted on February 25, 2026 by Sridhar P

On January 1, 2024, something weird occurred. The most powerful solar flare ever recorded hit the Earth and just less than 24 hours after, the Noto Peninsula in Japan suffered a devastating earthquake, claiming the lives of more than 700 and destroying almost 205,000 homes. Scientists referred to it as a coincidence. But a startling new model has been proposed by scientists in Kyoto University indicating that solar flares, which are giant bursts of charged particles of the sun, could be able to trigger earthquakes on earth.

The paper introduces a theoretical process in which the changes in ionospheric charge due to intense solar activity like a solar flare may cause collision with already existing weak structures within the crust of the earth and therefore play a role in the fracture process.

In simple words: the Sun throws a burst of energy towards the earth, it destabilizes the upper atmosphere, and that instability can, in the right circumstances, cause an already stressed fault to slip over the edge into a disastrous failure.
The senior author of the study, Ken Umeno of Kyoto University was careful in his framing: “We are not saying that solar flares produce tectonic stress. We are talking of timing, not energy. With a fault that is already near failure, a minor perturbation can change upon rupture.”

Earth Is a Giant Leaky Battery, and Sun Has the Switch

The process suggested by the Kyoto team is as beautiful as it is terrifying. The researchers developed a model that considered the crust of the earth and the ionosphere; a charged layer 250 miles above the earth as two poles of a battery. Upon entering the Earth when the electrically charged particles of a solar flare collide, the particles move the electrons downwards in the ionosphere resulting in an accumulation of electrons at lower altitudes forming a negative charge layer. The charge, in its turn, adds electrostatic force acting in the crust of the earth, namely, in the microscopic openings filled with water in the fracture areas of the rocks.

The resulting electrostatic pressure within those voids can rise to a number of megapascals – magnitudes that are equal to and in certain cases surpass the levels of pressure known to affect brittle failure in rock.

‘Hiding data’ pitch surfaces again

As can be expected, the research has sparked a firestorm on X, the Reddit, and Telegram earthquake-watching groups. The fact that the anomalies in the ionosphere can be repeatedly observed before significant earthquakes, and that this anomaly was noticed during the 2011 disaster in Tohoku, the 2016 earthquake in Kumamoto, and the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake, is being pointed out by conspiracy theorists who believe that governments and space agencies have long known about this phenomenon but suppressed it so as to prevent panic around the world.

There is another one that an earthquake of December 2025 that Umeno mentioned which came after an X-class solar flare by hours. Seismology chat rooms are already recording all the big solar events with a view to cross-checking them with future quakes, they are known as solar seismic watchers.

Not Everyone Is Convinced

The establishment is scratching its way back. According to a geophysicist, Nicholas Schmerr of the University of Maryland, the study was highly speculative and the paper lacks an in-depth analysis or well-founded evidence that the activity under discussion does in fact connect solar flares and earthquakes. The research itself admits that it is not intended to forecast earthquakes, just to trace a physical way that may potentially be used in further research. A causal relationship may not be established until several years of statistical work through the records of seismic activities across the world are undertaken.

This is where it becomes very disturbing. It was observed by scientists that the visible disk of the Sun has never been fully devoid of sunspots before June 2022, which marks the second indication that the ongoing solar cycle might be approaching a quieter period. But solar cycles do not decline evenly they tend to result in strong, bursting out bursts of activity during the wind-down. And in case even the Kyoto model is partially true, the question is: what stressed fault zone of the world is currently sitting at its breaking point, and which is the solar storm that will be the one to get it to break?

The scientists indicate that the future work will involve a combination of the high-resolution atmospheric monitoring and underground sensors. Until now, the next time a solar flare warning lights up, it will seem to you as though you are staring at the ground under your feet.

Timeline of UFO Sightings, Events Leading to Trump Order on Release of US Govt Files

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Sridhar P

Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s surprising remarks on the possibility of extraterrestrial life have reignited the century-old debate on aliens prompting President Donald Trump to quickly order a review and release of government files related to unidentified flying objects (UFO) and aliens.

Former US President Barack Obama pardons Chelsea Manning and commutes her sentence . (Photo: US White House)

Here’s a Chronology of Major UFO/UAP Events showing the timeline of key sightings, incidents, government investigations, and disclosures related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) or unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), drawn from historical records and recent developments in Washington D.C.:

Date	Event Description
June 13, 1933	Alleged UFO crash in northern Italy, one of the earliest reported recovery incidents involving potential non-human craft.
June 24, 1947	Pilot Kenneth Arnold reports seeing nine crescent-shaped objects flying at high speed near Mount Rainier, Washington, coining the term “flying saucers” and sparking widespread public interest in UFOs.
July 1947	The Roswell Incident: Debris from a crashed object near Roswell, New Mexico, is initially announced as a “flying disc” by the U.S. military, later retracted as a weather balloon; it becomes one of the most famous alleged UFO cover-ups.
1948	The U.S. Air Force launches Project Sign, the first official government study to assess if UFOs pose a national security threat; it evolves into Project Grudge in 1949.
July 1952	The Washington, D.C., UFO flap: Multiple unidentified objects detected on radar over the U.S. capital, with fighter jets scrambled; remains unexplained and leads to heightened government scrutiny.
1952	Project Blue Book is established by the U.S. Air Force to investigate UFO reports, succeeding earlier programs and operating until 1969.
Sept 19-21, 1961	Betty and Barney Hill abduction: The first widely publicized alien abduction case in New Hampshire, where the couple claims to have been taken aboard a UFO and examined by extraterrestrial beings.
Jan 1969	The Condon Report is released, concluding that UFOs warrant no further scientific study, influencing the termination of Project Blue Book.
Dec 17, 1969	Project Blue Book is officially terminated by the U.S. Air Force, after investigating over 12,000 reports and deeming most explainable.
Nov 5, 1975	Travis Walton abduction: A logger in Arizona claims to be abducted by a UFO, missing for five days before returning with detailed accounts of encounters aboard the craft.
Dec 26, 1980	Rendlesham Forest Incident: U.S. military personnel at RAF Bentwaters in the UK report erroneous lights and a triangular craft landing in the forest, with physical traces found.
Nov 17, 2004	USS Nimitz “Tic Tac” encounter: U.S. Navy pilots off the California coast observe a white, oblong object exhibiting impossible maneuvers, captured on video and radar.
2007-2012	The Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) is secretly funded by the U.S. Department of Defense to study UFOs/UAPs.
Dec 16, 2017	The New York Times publishes an exposé on the Pentagon’s AATIP program, including leaked videos of UAP encounters, reigniting public and governmental interest.
April 27, 2020	The Pentagon officially releases three UAP videos (FLIR, GIMBAL, GOFAST) captured by Navy pilots, confirming their authenticity.
Aug 4, 2020	The UAP Task Force is established by the Pentagon to assess UAP threats to national security.
June 25, 2021	The Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases the Preliminary UAP Assessment, analyzing 144 incidents from 2004-2021, with most unexplained.
July 20, 2022	The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) is formed by the Department of Defense to investigate UAP across air, sea, and space domains.
July 26, 2023	Congressional UAP hearing: Whistleblower David Grusch testifies about U.S. government possession of non-human spacecraft and biologics; pilots Ryan Graves and David Fravor share encounters.
Dec 22, 2023	President Biden signs the NDAA FY24, including the first U.S. legal reference to “non-human intelligence” in relation to UAP.
March 2024	AARO releases an annual report on UAP, noting advancements in data collection and a decrease in unexplained cases through AI analysis.
April 2024	NASA’s UAP Study Team publishes its final report, recommending a dedicated research program and international collaboration on UAP.
Sept 2025	Congressional UAP hearing releases never-before-seen video of a U.S. drone firing a Hellfire missile at an unexplained “orb” off Yemen (incident dated October 2024), highlighting ongoing military encounters.
Jan 20, 2026	Filmmaker James Fox hosts a UAP press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., presenting new evidence on non-human encounters and crash-retrievals, calling for whistleblower protections.
Feb 16, 2026	Former President Barack Obama comments on a podcast that aliens are “real,” sparking debate amid ongoing congressional UAP investigations.
Feb 19, 2026	President Donald Trump announces via Truth Social that he is directing federal agencies, including the Pentagon, to identify and release files on UFOs, UAPs, and extraterrestrial life.

Trump Orders UFO-Linked Files Release on Aliens After Obama Remarks, But No Timeframe

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Sridhar P

The renewed focus followed a wide-ranging interview Obama gave to journalist Brian Tyler Cohen, published over the weekend, in which he addressed long-running speculation around Area 51 and government secrecy. Obama initially dismissed claims of hidden alien facilities, saying, “there’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy, and they hid it from the president of the United States.”

The comments quickly spread online, triggering speculation and forcing Obama issue a clarification stating that he was speaking in statistical terms rather than suggesting or confirming any extraterrestrial contact. “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” Obama said. He added further that “the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

The interview revived a topic that has long captured public imagination and political attention in the United States. A 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that 65 percent of Americans believe intelligent life exists on other planets, underscoring why such remarks continue to resonate widely.

Trump’s Move Overshadows Attention on Obama Remarks

Questions about Obama’s comments were put directly to Trump by reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. Trump said he did not know whether aliens were real, but suggested that Obama may have revealed sensitive information, claiming the former president had disclosed “classified information” in his remarks.

Trump orders release of files on aliens or extraterrestrial life/ Truth Social

Within hours, Trump escalated the issue by announcing a formal directive to the Pentagon and other agencies. In a post on Truth Social, he said he had instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to begin identifying and releasing any government records related to extraterrestrial life and unexplained aerial sightings.

“Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters,” Trump wrote.

Rare Step in UFO History

The announcement marks a rare instance of a sitting president explicitly ordering a review of alien-related material, even as U.S. officials have consistently stopped short of linking unexplained aerial encounters to extraterrestrial origins. In recent years, the Pentagon has acknowledged reports from military pilots involving unidentified aerial phenomena, adopting the UAP terminology to avoid the stigma historically associated with UFOs.

US President Donald Trump

Trump’s directive aligns with his long-standing, often cautious public posture on the subject. During his first term, he confirmed receiving briefings on reported UFO sightings by U.S. Navy pilots but expressed doubt about their significance. “I did have one very brief meeting on it,” he told ABC News in 2019. “People are saying they’re seeing UFOs. Do I believe it? Not particularly.”

That skepticism has remained consistent. In a 2019 interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump said, “Well, I don’t want to really get into it too much. But personally, I tend to doubt it. I’m not a believer, but you know, I guess anything is possible.”

When Trump Claime to Know More Than What He Shared Publicly

Trump has also suggested at times that he knows more than he has publicly shared. When asked by his son, Donald Trump Jr., in 2020 about revealing “what’s really going on with Roswell,” Trump responded: “I won’t talk to you about what I know about it, but it’s very interesting.”

More recently, Trump reiterated his doubts during a 2024 appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, saying he had never been a believer despite hearing claims from others. Later that year, he told Fox News host Greg Gutfeld that questions about aliens and Area 51 were among the most frequent he received from the public. He also recounted pilots describing encounters with a “round object going faster than my F-22.”

For now, Trump has offered no timeline for when documents might be released or how extensive the disclosures could be. It also remains unclear what role national security considerations may play in limiting access to classified material. What is clear is that Obama’s remarks have once again pushed the issue of extraterrestrial life into the center of public attention.

DNA Sheds Light on Stone Age Kinship Family Bonds in Ancient Gotland Graves

Posted on February 19, 2026 by Sridhar P

In the windswept landscapes of Gotland, Sweden’s largest island, archaeologists have long puzzled over the burial practices of a 5,500-year-old hunter-gatherer community. Now, a groundbreaking DNA study from Uppsala University is rewriting our understanding of these ancient people, revealing not just who was buried with whom, but hinting at a sophisticated grasp of family lineages that extended far beyond parents and siblings.

The findings, drawn from four shared graves at the Ajvide site, suggest these Stone Age inhabitants placed deep value on distant relatives from cousins, aunts, to great-aunts, challenging assumptions about prehistoric social structures. The Ajvide burial ground, nestled on Gotland in the Baltic Sea, stands as one of Scandinavia’s premier Stone Age treasures. Discovered decades ago, it boasts 85 known graves filled with artifacts from a culture that thrived on seal hunting and fishing, even as farming swept across southern Europe.

These people, part of the Pitted Ware Culture (PWC), remained genetically distinct from emerging agricultural societies, clinging to a nomadic lifestyle amid a changing world.What sets Ajvide apart are its multiple-occupancy graves, eight in total, each holding two or more individuals.

Four Graves but Surprising Findings

Researchers zeroed in on four of these for their latest analysis, extracting DNA from teeth and bones to map out kinship. The results, published in a peer-reviewed journal, paint a picture of deliberate burials where blood ties mattered, but not always in the ways we’d expect.Take Grave 1: A 20-year-old woman lay flanked by two young children, a four-year-old boy and a one-and-a-half-year-old girl. At first glance, it screams maternal bond.

The 8-10-year-old girl placed stretched out on her back with a bone cluster that belongs to a young adult female who was a third-degree relative of the girl / Photo: Johan Norderäng

But the DNA tells a different story. The kids were full siblings, sharing half their genetic material, yet the woman wasn’t their mother. Instead, she was likely their paternal aunt or half-sister, a second-degree relative.

“Surprisingly enough, the analysis showed that many of those who were buried together were second- or third-degree relatives, rather than first-degree relatives,” explained Helena Malmström, the archaeogeneticist who designed the study. “This suggests that these people had a good knowledge of their family lineages and that relationships beyond the immediate family played an important role.”

Grave 2 offered another twist: A teenage girl buried beside an adult man, whose remains appeared relocated from elsewhere. Genetic testing confirmed he was her father, a rare direct parent-child link in these shared plots. Then there’s Grave 3, with two children, a boy and a gir, interred together. No siblings here; they shared just an eighth of their DNA, pointing to third-degree kin like cousins.

Grave 4 mirrored this: An 8- to 10-year-old girl stretched out on her back, accompanied by a cluster of bones from a young adult female, her third-degree relative, perhaps a great-aunt or cousin. These revelations come from meticulous genetic work. To determine sex, scientists checked for chromosomal markers: Two X chromosomes for females, an X and Y for males, crucial since children’s skeletons often lack clear indicators. Kinship degrees were gauged by shared DNA segments.

Kinship in Hunter-Gtherer Cultures

First-degree relatives (parents, kids, full siblings) match about 50 percent; second-degree (grandparents, half-siblings) around 25 percent; third-degree (cousins, great-grandparents) roughly 12.5 percent. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), passed solely through mothers, helped trace maternal lines, while broader nuclear DNA filled in the paternal and overall puzzle.

The 8-10-year-old girl placed stretched out on her back with a bone cluster that belongs to a young adult female who was a third-degree relative of the girl / Photo: Johan Norderäng

Tiina Mattila, the population geneticist leading the genetic analyses, noted the rarity of such insights. “As it is unusual for these kinds of hunter-gatherer graves to be preserved, studies of kinship in archaeological hunter-gatherer cultures are scarce and typically limited in scale,” she said. This pilot study, analyzing ten individuals from the four graves, is just the start.

The team plans to expand to over 70 remains from Ajvide, probing deeper into social organization, migration patterns, and rituals.Paul Wallin, a professor of archaeology and Ajvide expert, sees broader implications. “The analyses provide insight into social organisation in the Stone Age,” he told researchers. In a time without written records, these burials suggest oral traditions or communal knowledge kept track of extended families.

Why bury cousins or aunts together?

It could signal alliances, inheritance of roles, or even symbolic ties to ancestors. The PWC’s genetic makeup, about 80 percent from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and 20 percent from Neolithic farmers, hints at interactions with outsiders, perhaps through marriage or trade.

On social media platform X, the discovery sparked quick buzz among history buffs and scientists. Archaeology enthusiast Nrken19 posted: “DNA analyses suggest that Gotland hunter-gatherers were well aware of family lineages and that relationships beyond the immediate family played an important role,” linking to a Phys.org summary.

The 8-10-year-old girl placed stretched out on her back with a bone cluster that belongs to a young adult female who was a third-degree relative of the girl / Photo: Johan Norderäng

In a follow-up, he added details on the PWC’s dual ancestry, blending Mesolithic and farmer roots. Gerry Ward, a science news sharer, pointed to a related piece: “Using aDNA to determine family relationships of individuals buried approximately 5,500 years ago.”
These online ripples underscore the public’s fascination with ancient DNA, a field exploding thanks to advances in sequencing tech. Just as in modern forensics, ancient DNA (aDNA) extraction involves grinding bone samples, isolating fragments, and amplifying them via PCR before sequencing.

Degradation over millennia means short, fragmented strands, contaminated by microbes or modern handlers. But tools like next-generation sequencing have made it possible to reconstruct genomes from scraps, revealing everything from Neanderthal interbreeding to migration waves. This Gotland study fits into a global mosaic.

Similar work in Britain uncovered a 5,700-year-old family tree from a Gloucestershire tomb, showing polygamy and patrilineal descent. In Siberia, Bronze Age graves revealed complex kin networks among nomads. Here, the absence of immediate family in many co-burials might indicate taboos against burying parents with kids, or perhaps rituals honoring extended clans to strengthen community bonds.Yet, questions linger.
Were these burials simultaneous, or added over time?

The relocated man in Grave 2 suggests secondary interments, a practice seen in other cultures to reunite kin. And the children’s presence in most graves raises poignant queries about mortality rates or sacrificial rites, though no evidence supports the latter. As Uppsala’s team digs deeper, Ajvide could illuminate how hunter-gatherers navigated a world on the cusp of agriculture.

In an era of climate shifts and resource pressures, family ties likely provided safety nets, much like today. Malmström’s words resonate: These people weren’t isolated primitives but part of intricate social webs, tracking lineages with the precision of a family tree app.

The Stone Age, often romanticized as brutal and basic, emerges more nuanced, full of relationships that echo our own. As Wallin put it, it’s a window into “life histories and burial rites” that humanize our ancestors. In Gotland’s quiet graves, the past whispers secrets, reminding us that family, in all its forms, has always been the thread binding humanity.

Check Related FAQs:

How Ancient DNA Reveal Kinship Degrees?

Ancient DNA from teeth and bones was analyzed to determine sex via chromosomes (XX for females, XY for males) and kinship by shared genetic material. First-degree relatives like parents or siblings share about 50%; second-degree (half-siblings, grandparents) around 25%; third-degree (cousins) roughly 12.5%. This mapping uncovered extended family ties in Gotland’s Stone Age graves, beyond immediate kin.

What Is the Pitted Ware Culture?

The Pitted Ware Culture (PWC) was a Neolithic hunter-gatherer society in Scandinavia around 5,500 years ago, thriving on seal hunting, fishing, and foraging. Genetically distinct from contemporary farmers, they inhabited sites like Ajvide on Gotland, leaving pottery with pitted decorations and communal graves. Their lifestyle persisted amid Europe’s agricultural shift, blending Mesolithic roots with minor farmer influences.

How Did Stone Age Hunter-Gatherers Track Extended Family Ties?

Imagine epic fireside tales weaving generations! These savvy survivors used oral traditions, memorized genealogies, and kinship rituals to map out cousins and aunts. By mingling with distant groups to dodge inbreeding, they built vast social webs, ensuring family lore endured through stories alone.

What Do These Burials Reveal About Gender Roles in Ancient Societies?

Shattering stereotypes, these graves scream equality! In Pitted Ware culture, men, women, and kids mingled in burials without strict divisions or status gaps. Mixed-sex co-burials suggest flexible roles, where gender didn’t boss rituals or hierarchy—hinting at a balanced society far from rigid patriarchal norms.

Could Similar DNA Studies Uncover Hidden Family Ties Elsewhere?

When DNA has mapped seven-generation clans in Britain, exposed elite incest in Ireland, and traced kin from Mongolia to Russia. Worldwide, it reveals patrilineal lines, exogamy, and social twists in tombs from Europe to Asia, rewriting human history.

Why Cousins Be Buried Together Instead of Immediate Family?

Ancient rites often honored extended kin to symbolize lineages, dodge nuclear family taboos, or strengthen social bonds. At Ajvide, co-burials of cousins and aunts spotlight deep kinship knowledge, weaving community ties through ritual—far beyond just parents and children.

2,000-year-old Iron Age temple discovered in Denmark

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Srinivas Chakravarty

Beneath what appeared for generations to be an unremarkable stretch of grassland in central Jutland, archaeologists have uncovered one of the most consequential Iron Age sites ever found in Denmark: a vast, fortified settlement centred on a monumental temple dating back nearly 2,000 years.

The discovery at Hedegaard, near Ejstrupholm, is reshaping historians’ understanding of how power, religion and long-distance connections were organised in northern Europe around the turn of the Common Era. Danish archaeologists say the site was not a peripheral village but a regional power centre, combining ritual authority, political control and economic activity within a single, carefully planned landscape.

“This is not just another settlement,” said Martin Winther Olesen, museum inspector at Museum Midtjylland. “Everything here is bigger, more complex and more deliberate than what we normally see. Nothing is ordinary.”

A Landscape That Hid Its Past

For decades, Hedegaard gave little hint of what lay beneath. Unlike many archaeological sites disturbed by deep ploughing, the area’s cultural layers remained remarkably intact, protected by relatively light agricultural use. That preservation would prove crucial.

The site first drew attention in 1986, when archaeologist Orla Madsen uncovered an unusually rich burial ground containing weapons — a signal that the area held higher-status remains. Excavations continued sporadically until 1993, after which the site slipped into dormancy.

It was only after research resumed in 2016, and intensified fieldwork in 2023, that archaeologists realised the graves were just one element of a much larger whole. What emerged was a fortified complex comprising elite residences, workshops, defensive palisades and a central temple — all laid out on a scale rarely seen in Iron Age Denmark.

The Temple at the Heart of Power

At the centre of Hedegaard stands the most striking discovery: a large ceremonial building, dated to around 0 AD, offering some of the clearest evidence yet of Iron Age religious architecture in Denmark.

The temple measures roughly 15 by 16 metres, almost rectangular in form. A ring of robust posts creates a colonnade encircling a smaller inner structure. This inner building was constructed with deeply set posts, clay walls and split wooden planks, and features a south-facing entrance — a detail archaeologists believe carried symbolic meaning.

Inside, researchers uncovered a raised 2-by-2-metre hearth, decorated with stamped and linear patterns. Crucially, the hearth shows no signs of everyday cooking.

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“This was not a domestic space,” archaeologists say. “It was a ritual one.” The find provides rare physical evidence of how religious ceremonies may have been staged, offering insight into belief systems that were previously known mostly through later texts and scattered finds.

Fortifications in the Shadow of Rome

Hedegaard’s scale and defences also place it firmly within a wider European context. Around the time the temple was built, the Roman Empire was expanding northwards, reaching as far as the River Elbe, not far from Jutland.

Archaeologists believe Hedegaard’s palisades and defensive structures were not incidental. Their design reflects technical knowledge and strategic planning, possibly shaped by awareness of Roman military organisation and the shifting balance of power in northern Europe.

“The fortifications may have been practical,” Olesen said, “but they were also symbolic. They sent a message: this was a place of authority, not to be challenged lightly.”

Taken together, the discoveries at Hedegaard challenge older views of Iron Age Denmark as a landscape of loosely connected farming communities. Instead, the site points to centralised power, controlled by elites who commanded resources, organised large-scale construction and maintained long-distance contacts.

The combination of ritual space, political authority and economic activity in one location suggests Hedegaard functioned as a hub — a place where decisions were made, alliances forged and religious legitimacy reinforced.

For archaeologists, the implications extend far beyond central Jutland.

“This forces us to rethink how power was structured in northern Europe at the dawn of the Roman era,” researchers say. “Hedegaard was not on the margins of history. It was very much part of it.”

Ten Years After Paris Climate Pact, Warming Curve Steepens Alarmingly

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Sridhar P

Ten years after the Paris Agreement entered into force with the promise of bending the global temperature curve, the latest scientific data suggest the opposite has happened. The planet is warming faster, not slower, and the physical systems that regulate Earth’s climate are crossing thresholds once considered distant risks.

Newly released datasets from leading climate agencies show that 2025 ranks among the three hottest years ever recorded, while atmospheric greenhouse gases, ocean heat and sea levels all reached new highs. Together, the numbers paint a sobering picture: efforts to rein in fossil fuel use have not kept pace with the scale of the challenge.

A decade on, the world is drifting further from its climate goals.

Emissions in Reality

Countries with Highest Carbon Footprint

Measurements from the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Atmosphere Watch network show concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide climbing to record levels, the primary driver behind the sharp temperature rise observed from 2023 to 2025.

According to the Global Carbon Budget, global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions are projected to reach 38.1 billion tonnes in 2025, the highest level ever recorded. Coal, oil and gas use continue to rise, offsetting gains from renewable energy deployment.

The report, compiled by more than 130 scientists worldwide, estimates emissions will grow by 1.1% in 2026, pushing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations to roughly 52% above pre-industrial levels.

Scientists warn the remaining carbon budget is vanishingly small. To have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, humanity can emit only about 170 billion tonnes more CO₂, roughly four years of emissions at current rates.

Regionally, trends diverge. Emissions are still rising in China, India, the United States and the European Union, while Japan has recorded a modest decline.

A Decade of Acceleration in Temperatures

Data from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies show Earth’s surface temperature in 2025 averaged 1.19°C above the 1951–1980 baseline, effectively tying with 2023 as the warmest year on record.

When measured against the pre-industrial era, the picture is starker. The WMO’s consolidated dataset places 2025 at 1.44°C above pre-industrial levels, ranking it among the three hottest years in the 176-year instrumental record.

Independent analyses from Berkeley Earth confirm the trend: warming has accelerated notably since the mid-2010s, coinciding with a surge in cumulative emissions.

Arctic: Sea Ice at Historic Lows

The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the global average, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA’s 2025 Arctic Report Card found that the period from October 2024 to September 2025 was the warmest in the region since records began in 1900. In March 2025, Arctic sea-ice extent reached its lowest winter maximum ever recorded, covering just 14.47 million square kilometres, data from the U.S. National Ice Center show.

Scientists warn that shrinking sea ice not only accelerates warming, by reducing the Earth’s reflectivity, but also disrupts weather patterns far beyond the polar regions.

Oceans: Absorbing the Heat, Raising the Seas

The oceans, which absorb more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases, set new records in 2025. NOAA and Berkeley Earth report that upper-ocean heat content reached its highest level ever measured.

As oceans warm, they expand. Combined with melting glaciers and ice sheets, this has pushed global sea levels steadily higher. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a rise of 0.20 to 0.29 metres by 2050, compared with the 1995–2014 average, a change that threatens coastal cities, ports and low-lying nations.

A Decade After Paris

When the Paris Agreement was adopted, governments pledged to keep warming “well below” 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. A decade later, the data show the world edging perilously close to that lower threshold, without a credible pathway to stop there.

The science does not argue that Paris failed; it shows that implementation has lagged ambition. What the next decade delivers will depend less on new pledges than on whether the existing ones finally translate into structural change.

For now, the climate system is delivering its verdict in numbers, and those numbers are moving faster than diplomacy.

NASA’s Webb Cameras Explore Largest Star-Forming Cloud in Milky Way

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Srinivas Chakravarty

The difference longer wavelengths of light make, even within the infrared spectrum, are stark when comparing the images from Webb’s MIRI and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instruments. Glowing gas and dust appear dramatically in mid-infrared light, while all but the brightest stars disappear from view.

In contrast to MIRI, colorful stars steal the show in Webb’s NIRCam image, punctuated occasionally by bright clouds of gas and dust. Further research into these stars will reveal details of their masses and ages, which will help astronomers better understand the process of star formation in this dense, active galactic center region. Has it been going on for millions of years? Or has some unknown process triggered it only recently?

Astronomers hope Webb will shed light on why star formation in the galactic center is so disproportionately low. Though the region is stocked with plenty of gaseous raw material, on the whole it is not nearly as productive as Sagittarius B2. While Sagittarius B2 has only 10 percent of the galactic center’s gas, it produces 50 percent of its stars.

“Humans have been studying the stars for thousands of years, and there is still a lot to understand,” said Nazar Budaiev, a graduate student at the University of Florida and the co-principal investigator of the study. “For everything new Webb is showing us, there are also new mysteries to explore, and it’s exciting to be a part of that ongoing discovery.”

More about Webb and MIRI

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Webb’s MIRI was developed through a 50-50 partnership between NASA and ESA. A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL led the U.S. contribution to MIRI. JPL also led development of MIRI’s cryocooler, done in collaboration with Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, California, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

PHDCCI Seeks Creation Of Critical Minerals Dept, Calls For Aggressive Resource Diplomacy

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Srinivas Chakravarty

The PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) has urged the Centre to establish a dedicated Department of Critical Minerals and adopt a policy of “aggressive mineral diplomacy” to safeguard India’s economic interests amid mounting global supply-chain risks.

At a brainstorming session hosted by the chamber, industry experts underscored the urgency of developing a complete value chain for critical minerals—covering exploration, extraction, refining, value addition, and marketing—similar to the integrated strategy followed by China under its National Mission framework.

Anil Chaudhary, Senior Member of the Minerals & Metals Committee at PHDCCI and former Chairman of SAIL, lauded the government for shortlisting 30 critical minerals but insisted that coking coal be added to the list.

“India has been importing 90 per cent of the coking coal requirement, worth $15 billion, every year, which is likely to double in the next 10–12 years,” Chaudhary cautioned.

He further noted that critical mineral supplies are increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical tensions and trade restrictions, adding that India must build strategic partnerships with smaller, resource-rich nations such as Congo, Mozambique, Afghanistan, and several Latin American countries to cut reliance on China.

Speakers at the event also pressed for stronger coordination among ministries, stockpiling of key minerals, and the creation of buffer inventories, akin to how the United States manages its oil and gas reserves. They emphasised simplifying regulations and offering incentives to private players for exploration, extraction, and downstream processing.

Deepak Bhatnagar, Secretary General of the Pellet Manufacturers’ Association of India, advocated a mission-driven approach for the sector.

“We need a holistic and time-bound mission-mode approach for the development of critical minerals, on the lines of Mission Agni started by former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam,” he said.

Linking the minerals strategy to India’s clean energy ambitions, Abhinav Sengupta, Associate Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, pointed out that renewable technologies and electric vehicles (EVs) are far more resource-intensive than their conventional counterparts.

“The energy transition will be critical mineral-intensive, as EVs are six times more mineral-intensive than conventional vehicles due to batteries, and solar PV and onshore wind are around three times more mineral-intensive than conventional sources,” Sengupta explained.

Experts agreed that without a structured policy framework and international partnerships, India’s renewable energy, defence, and advanced manufacturing goals could face major hurdles.

They urged the government to adopt a comprehensive national mission integrating technology-led exploration, resource diplomacy, and private sector collaboration to secure India’s long-term mineral security and industrial competitiveness.

Asteroid 2025 FA22 Set for Close Flyby on September 18

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Sridevi K.

The night sky often brings a sense of awe, but every so often, a rocky visitor from deep space captures global attention. This week, astronomers are tracking asteroid 2025 FA22, which will sweep past Earth on Thursday, 18 September, 2025, in one of the year’s most closely monitored celestial events.

According to NASA, FA22 is about 520 feet (160 metres) wide and hurtles through space at over 24,000 miles per hour. On its closest approach, it will pass at a distance of 523,000 miles (841,900 km), tht is slightly farther than the Moon. While that might not sound close, in astronomical terms, it qualifies as a near miss.

The asteroid is part of the Aten group, a class of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) whose orbits cross Earth’s path. Because of their trajectories, they are among the most carefully tracked objects in the solar system.

Despite its size, experts stress that FA22 poses no risk. NASA designates an asteroid as hazardous if it comes within 7.4 million kilometres of Earth and measures more than 85 metres across. Although FA22 fits the size category, its trajectory keeps it well outside the danger zone.

Still, scientists emphasise that close monitoring is essential. Even small shifts in an asteroid’s orbit, caused by gravitational nudges or solar radiation effects, can change its future path dramatically.

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NASA noted that shortly after its discovery in March 2025, FA22 briefly reached Torino Scale 1, a category that flags objects worth monitoring, though unlikely to impact Earth. Further observations quickly ruled out any threat.

2025 – A Busy Year for Sky Watchers

The September encounter comes during a year filled with notable asteroid activity.

January 2025: Asteroid 2025 AB10, a 200-foot rock, passed at 1.2 million kilometres, offering astronomers early tracking practice for the year.
March 29, 2025: FA22 was first spotted by the Pan-STARRS 2 telescope in Hawaii, triggering the global observing campaign now underway.
July 2025: A smaller asteroid, 2025 JX3, skimmed within 400,000 kilometres, just inside the Moon’s orbit, sparking public interest.
September 2025: FA22 now headlines as the largest close-approaching asteroid of the year.
Later in 2025: Astronomers also anticipate the flyby of 2025 QH5 in December, which, while smaller, will pass even closer than FA22.

These encounters remind us that the Blue Planet shares a dynamic neighbourhood with thousands of NEOs, most harmless, but all worth studying.

Why Should We Care About Every Flyby?

Even when no danger exists, each asteroid provides a chance to refine tracking systems and test planetary defense protocols. The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) has organised a worldwide observing campaign around FA22. Telescopes across the globe will collect data on its orbit, size, spin, and surface features.

IAWN explained: “For the purpose of the exercise, we will treat this object as a current virtual impactor with a hypothetical impact on September 19, 2089.” In reality, updated orbital calculations show no risk of impact.

Beyond FA22, attention is building toward Apophis, a much larger asteroid due in 2029. In fact, ISRO chief S. Somanath recently outlined India’s plans to join NASA, ESA, and JAXA in asteroid exploration, including potential landing missions. The goal is to understand their makeup, test resource extraction technologies, and sharpen defense strategies.

Past close approaches, such as 2019 OK, which flew within 73,000 kilometres, and 2020 QG, which zipped by at just 3,000 kilometres—show how unexpectedly close asteroids can appear. While FA22 will pass at a safe distance, its visit underscores why constant vigilance is critical.

For amateur astronomers, the event is also a spectacle. On September 18–19, FA22 is expected to reach magnitude 13, visible through small backyard telescopes. The Virtual Telescope Project will livestream the passage for global audiences.

Though harmless, FA22’s arrival highlights a core truth about our place in the cosmos: the skies above are far from static. Each asteroid encounter is both a reminder of Earth’s vulnerability and a chance to sharpen humanity’s readiness for the unexpected.

World News in Brief: Pandemic Treaty Update, DR Congo Ebola Response, More Casualties in Ukraine

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Arun Kumar N

Pandemic Treaty

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the world’s first pandemic trety “a generational accomplishment”, while speaking at the start of a meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the WHO Pandemic Agreement, taking place in Geneva through Friday. It comes four months after countries adopted the pact.

Tedros said the next step “is to bring this historic achievement to fruition” by finalizing the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system. He urged countries to use this week to pave the way to developing the platform, with the ultimate goal of adoption next year.

“It is in every country’s interest that this process is not delayed any further. Because, as we are all aware, the next pandemic or major global health emergency is not a question of if, but when,” he said.

DR Congo: UN and partners support Ebola response in Kasai province

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is facing an Ebola outbreak in Kasai province, located in the southwest, with 35 confirmed cases including 27 deaths.

The UN and partners are supporting the Government in the response, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General said on Monday in New York. Stéphane Dujarric told reporters that partners working in health have facilitated the delivery of over 350 doses of the Ebola vaccine to the Bulape health zone, the epicentre of the outbreak.

“We have also mobilized rapid response teams focusing on case detection and surveillance, clinical case management, infection and prevention control, and risk communication and community engagement,” he added.

Meanwhile, health partners are mobilizing to contain the outbreak. He warned, however, that gaps in medical supplies and logistical capacity are hindering the response, and urgent funding is needed.

Ukraine: Dozens of casualties reported in weekend hostilities

Hostilities continued over the weekend in Ukraine, with the Donetsk region particularly affected, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Monday.

Several civilians have been killed and 40 injured in the region since Friday, while local authorities also documented damage to nearly 190 civilian facilities, including homes, schools, a hospital and a pharmacy.

Other parts of Ukraine also experienced hostilities which damaged homes, farmland and other civilian infrastructure. Nearly 5,000 people remain without electricity in the Zaporizhzhia region.

OCHA said the continuing violence has forced more than 2,700 people, including roughly 340 children, to flee their homes between 12 and 14 September.

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