We need a solar sail probe to detect space tornadoes earlier, more accurately

An artist’s rendering of the spacecraft in the SWIFT constellation stationed in a triangular pyramid formation between the sun and Earth. A solar sail allows the spacecraft at the pyramid’s tip to hold station beyond L1 without conventional fuel.
Image Credit: Steve Alvey, University of Michigan.

Spirals of solar wind can spin off larger solar eruptions and disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, yet they are too difficult to detect with our current single-location warning system, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.

But a constellation of spacecraft, including one that sails on sunlight, could help find the tornado-like features in time to protect equipment on Earth and in orbit.

The study results come from computer simulations of a massive cloud of plasma erupting from the sun and moving through the solar system. Because the simulation covers features that span distances three times Earth’s diameter down to thousands of miles, the researchers could determine how smaller, tornado-like spirals of plasma and magnetic field—called flux ropes—become concerning features in their own right.

Antibody discovered that blocks almost all known HIV variants in neutralization assays

Image Credit; Scientific Frontline / AI Generated

 A Cologne-led research team has discovered the antibody 04_A06, which neutralizes the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in almost all tested variants in vitro and even overcomes typical resistance mechanisms. The discovery potentially opens up new perspectives for the prevention and treatment of HIV infections.

An international research team led by the University of Cologne has discovered an antibody that could advance the fight against HIV. The newly identified antibody 04_A06 proved to be particularly effective in laboratory tests. It was able to neutralize 98.5 percent of more than 300 different HIV strains, making it one of the broadest antibodies against HIV identified. In experiments with humanized mice – animals whose immune system has been modified to resemble that of humans – 04_A06 permanently reduced the HIV viral load to undetectable levels. Most other HIV antibodies, in contrast, only achieve short-term effects in this animal model, as resistance develops quickly. The study ‘Profiling of HIV-1 elite neutralizer cohort reveals a CD4bs bNAb for HIV-1 prevention and therapy’ was published in Nature Immunology.

Lake Tahoe Algae Experiment Suggests Seasonal Shifts Ahead

UC Davis researchers conduct periphyton research at Lake Tahoe.
Photo Credit: Brandon Berry, UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center

As the climate warms and nutrient inputs shift, algal communities in cool, clear mountain lakes like Lake Tahoe will likely experience seasonal changes, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. 

Periphyton, that fuzzy layer of attached algae covering the rocks as you step into the water, is a healthy and critical part of a lake’s food web. Periphyton blooms, however, signal changes that can degrade both water quality and a shoreline’s natural beauty.

Climate change is projected to increase global water temperatures by 1.8 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. It’s also expected to increase nutrients to lake waters through increased runoff from higher intensity storms and more precipitation falling as rain rather than snow.

“A majority of lakes globally are warming as a result of climate change,” said lead author Nick Framsted, a master’s student in the UC Davis Environmental Science and Policy department and Tahoe Environmental Research Center when the study was conducted. “With their clear, cold waters, mountain lakes are exceptionally sensitive to changes in temperature and nutrients.”

Researchers on the verge of solving Mexican mystery

The Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan in central Mexico.
Photo Credit: Christophe Helmke, University of Copenhagen

More than two millennia ago, Teotihuacan was a thriving metropolis in central Mexico with up to 125,000 inhabitants. The city had gigantic pyramids and was a cultural center in Mesoamerica at the time.

But the city, which today consists of ruins and is a popular destination for both archaeologists and tourists, holds a great mystery. Who were its inhabitants?

Researchers Magnus Pharao Hansen and Christopher Helmke from the University of Copenhagen have presented a possible solution to the mystery in the renowned journal Current Anthropology.

By analyzing the signs on Teotihuacan's colorful murals and many other artefacts, they have concluded that the signs constitute an actual writing system, and they believe that this writing records an early form of the Uto-Aztecan language, which a thousand years later developed into the languages Cora, Huichol, and Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs.

Lockheed Martin Sikorsky Introduces Nomad™ Family of Long-Endurance, Runway-Independent Drones

The Nomad family of VTOL drones can be scaled in size for a variety of sea and land-based missions.
 Image Credit: Courtesy of Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company.

Less than a year after proving the flight efficiency and reliability of a novel rotor blown wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS), Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company is unveiling its Nomad™ future family of aircraft.  

The twin proprotor design combines the versatility of a helicopter with the speed and range of a fixed-wing airplane. A Nomad aircraft can take off, hover, and land vertically, plus cruise on the wing for extended periods. Nomads are operated via Sikorsky’s MATRIX™ autonomy technology and predominantly use hybrid-electric propulsion, while larger variants will feature a conventional drivetrain.

Very few regret a legal gender change in Sweden

“We saw that the vast majority of people who go through the process to legally change their gender do not reverse this decision," says Kristen Clark, the study’s lead author.
Photo Credit: Tobias Sterner/Bildbyrån

Fewer than one per cent of people who have changed their legal gender choose to revert to the gender they were assigned at birth. This has been shown in a new study from Uppsala University in which the researchers looked at how stable a gender change is over time.

A new study based on national data from Sweden provides strong evidence that legal gender change in people diagnosed with gender dysphoria is stable over time. Reversal occurs in less than one per cent of cases.

“We saw that the vast majority of people who go through the process to legally change their gender do not reverse this decision. Of the 2,467 people included in the study who had applied for and obtained a change in their legal gender, only 21 changed it back to the gender they had been assigned at birth. The probability that a legal gender change will remain stable after 10 years is therefore estimated at close to 98 per cent,” says Kristen Clark, postdoc at Department of Medical Sciences and the study’s lead author.

Lidocaine poisonings rise despite overall drop in local anesthetic toxicity

UIC researchers have found that poisonings from lidocaine, the most commonly used local anesthetic, increased more than 50% between 2016 and 2020.
Photo Credit: Nappy Studio

Over the last decade, poisonings and deaths linked to the use of local anesthetics have decreased. Even so, poisonings from one commonly used anesthetic, lidocaine, have increased in the United States, according to two new studies from the University of Illinois Chicago.

By analyzing data from reports to national Poison Control Centers and to the Food and Drug Administration from 2010 to 2020, UIC researchers found total reports of poisonings fell 50% in that period. But poisonings from lidocaine increased more than 50% in less than half that time, between 2016 and 2020. The findings are published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine and the British Journal of Anesthesia.

Local anesthetics, including lidocaine, are widely used in medical care to manage pain before, during and after surgical procedures. General anesthesia acts everywhere in the body and puts patients in a sleep-like state. Local anesthesia controls pain and immobilizes a specific region of the body while a patient remains conscious.

Clam shells sound warning of Atlantic ‘tipping point’

Ocean quahog shells.
Photo Credit Paul Butler

A study of clam shells suggests Atlantic Ocean currents may be approaching a “tipping point”.

Scientists studied records of quahog clams (which can live for over 500 years) and dog cockles – because shell layers provide an annual record of ocean conditions.

They studied these natural archives to understand long-term patterns in Atlantic Ocean currents such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the subpolar gyre (SPG).

Recent studies have debated possible AMOC and SPG tipping points – transitions that would transform climate patterns. For example, AMOC collapse would have far-reaching global effects, from harsher winters in north-west Europe to shifts in global rainfall patterns, while a weakening of the SPG would be less catastrophic but still bring substantial impacts, including more frequent extreme weather in the North Atlantic region.

How Black Holes Produce Powerful Relativistic Jets

A chain of plasmoids is created on the equatorial plane along the current sheet, where the particle density (left part) is higher. Here, magnetic reconnection takes place, accelerating particles to very high energies (right). Particles also reach relativistic speeds along the spin axis and eventually form the jet powered by the Blandford–Znajek mechanism. Gray: Magnetic field lines.
Image Credit: Meringolo, Camilloni, Rezzolla (2025)

A hundred years before the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released the first image of a black hole in 2019 – located at the heart of the galaxy M87 – astronomer Heber Curtis had already discovered a strange jet protruding from the galaxy’s center. Today, we know this to be the jet of the black hole M87*. Such jets are also emitted by other black holes. Theoretical astrophysicists at Goethe University have now developed a numerical code to describe with high mathematical precision how black holes transform their rotational energy into such ultra-fast jets.

For nearly two centuries, it was unclear that the bright spot in the constellation Virgo, which Charles Messier had described in 1781 as “87: Nebula without stars,” was in fact a very large galaxy. As a result, there was initially no explanation for the strange jet discovered in 1918 emerging from the center of this “nebula.”

At the heart of the giant galaxy M87 lies the black hole M87*, which contains a staggering six and a half billion solar masses and spins rapidly on its axis. Using the energy from this rotation, M87* powers a particle jet expelled at nearly the speed of light, stretching across an immense 5,000 light-years. Such jets are also generated by other rotating black holes. They contribute to disperse energy and matter throughout the universe and can influence the evolution of entire galaxies.

Chemists create red fluorescent dyes that may enable clearer biomedical imaging

Caption:MIT chemists have created a fluorescent, boron-containing molecule that is stable when exposed to air and can emit light in the red and near-infrared range. The dye can be made into crystals (shown in these images), films, or powders. The images at top were taken in ambient light and the images at bottom in UV light.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the researchers
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

MIT chemists have designed a new type of fluorescent molecule that they hope could be used for applications such as generating clearer images of tumors.

The new dye is based on a borenium ion — a positively charged form of boron that can emit light in the red to near-infrared range. Until recently, these ions have been too unstable to be used for imaging or other biomedical applications.

In a study appearing today in Nature Chemistry, the researchers showed that they could stabilize borenium ions by attaching them to a ligand. This approach allowed them to create borenium-containing films, powders, and crystals, all of which emit and absorb light in the red and near-infrared range.

That is important because near-IR light is easier to see when imaging structures deep within tissues, which could allow for clearer images of tumors and other structures in the body.

“One of the reasons why we focus on red to near-IR is because those types of dyes penetrate the body and tissue much better than light in the UV and visible range. Stability and brightness of those red dyes are the challenges that we tried to overcome in this study,” says Robert Gilliard, the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT and the senior author of the study.