New study revises our picture of the most common planets in the galaxy

A new study finds that many “mini-Neptunes”—perhaps the most common planets in the galaxy—are under so much pressure from their heavy atmospheres that the surface is likely compressed solid. Illustration Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)

As telescopes have become more powerful, it’s turned out our solar system is not the only game in town: There are millions of other planets out there in the galaxy. 

But we’re still teasing out clues about what they are actually like. 

One of the puzzles is a kind of planet that appears to be one of the most common types in the universe. Known as “mini-Neptunes” because they run a little smaller than Neptune in our solar system, these planets are made of some mix of rock and metal, with thick atmospheres mostly made of hydrogen, helium, and perhaps water. Strangely, despite their abundance elsewhere, they have no analogue in our own solar system, making the population something of an enigma. 

But a new study published Nov. 5, led by Prof. Eliza Kempton with the University of Chicago, adds a new wrinkle to our best picture yet of these distant worlds.

Ancient mammoth tooth offers clues about Ice Age life in northeastern Canada

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline / AI generated

The re-examination of a 19th-century fossil indicates that woolly mammoths once roamed much farther east than previously believed, proof that an old specimen can still have secrets to reveal

A worn-down mammoth tooth discovered nearly 150 years ago on an island in Nunavut offers new insights into where and how the Ice Age giants lived and died.

A McGill-led study has reclassified the 1878 find, originally thought to be a Columbian mammoth, as an older, cold-adapted woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), making it the most northeasterly woolly mammoth find ever in North America. The tooth, unearthed on Long Island, Nunavut near the junction of Hudson and James bays, was first described in 1898 by Geological Survey of Canada director Robert Bell.

’Living metal’ could bridge the gap between biological and electronic systems

Liquid metal oxidizes when exposed to air or aquatic environments, deterring electrical current. A new "living metal" composite (seen here in a nanoscale view) developed at Binghamton University includes bacterial endospores and appears to mitigate this problem.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Binghamton University / Provided

Electronics have been transforming from rigid, lifeless systems into adaptive, living platforms capable of seamlessly interacting with biological environments. Researchers at Binghamton University are pioneering “living metal” composites embedded with bacterial endospores, paving the way for dynamic communication and integration between electronic and biological systems.

In a paper recently published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, Professor Seokheun “Sean” Choi, Maryam Rezaie, PhD ’25, and doctoral student Yang “Lexi” Gao share their potentially groundbreaking study on liquid living metal composites that could redefine the future of bioelectronics.

Choi — a faculty member in the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering — is developing innovative technologies to bridge the gap between electronic and biological systems.

Are there different types of black holes? New method puts Einstein to the test

At the current resolution of telescopes, black holes predicted by different theories of gravity still look very similar. Future telescopes will make the differences more visible, making it possible to distinguish Einstein's black holes from others.
(Image text translation: Einsteinian Black hole and Alternative Black hole)
Image Credit: L. Rezzolla / Goethe University

Images of black holes are more than just fascinating visuals: they could serve as a “testing ground” for alternative theories of gravity in the future. An international team led by Prof. Luciano Rezzolla has developed a new method to examine whether black holes operate according to Einstein’s theory of relativity or other, more exotic theories. To that end, the researchers conducted highly complex simulations and derived measurable criteria that can be tested with future, even sharper telescopes. Over the next few years, this method could reveal whether Einstein’s theories hold true even in the most extreme regions of the universe.

Black holes are considered cosmic gluttons, from which not even light can escape. That is also why the images of black holes at the center of the galaxy M87 and our Milky Way, published a few years ago by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, broke new ground. “What you see on these images is not the black hole itself, but rather the hot matter in its immediate vicinity,” explains Prof. Luciano Rezzolla, who, along with his team at Goethe University Frankfurt, played a key role in the findings. “As long as the matter is still rotating outside the event horizon – before being inevitably pulled in – it can emit final signals of light that we can, in principle, detect.”

Study paints detailed picture of forest canopy damage caused by ‘heat dome’

Heat dome foliar scorch
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Oregon State University

A satellite imagery analysis shows that the 2021 “heat dome” scorched almost 5% of the forested area in western Oregon and western Washington, turning foliage in canopies from a healthy green to red or orange, sometimes within a matter of hours.

Damage to foliage leads to a range of problems for trees including reduced photosynthesis and increased vulnerability to pests and disease, scientists at Oregon State University say.

The study by researchers at OSU and the U.S. Forest Service identified 293,546 hectares of damaged forest, a total area of more than 1,000 square miles that’s nearly the size of Rhode Island. They took a deep dive into the affected areas to learn the factors that made some stands more vulnerable than others to the extreme heat event experienced by the Pacific Northwest in June 2021.

Researchers decipher mechanism that prevents the loss of brown adipose tissue activity during ageing

From left to right, Tania Quesada-López, Francesc Villarroya, Albert Blasco-Roset, Marta Giralt, Alberto Mestres-Arenas, Joan Villarroya, Aleix Gavaldà-Navarro and Rubén Cereijo.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Barcelona

As the body ages, brown adipose tissue activity decreases, fewer calories are burned, and this can contribute to obesity and certain chronic cardiovascular diseases that worsen with age. A study led by the University of Barcelona has identified a key molecular mechanism in the loss of brown fat activity during ageing. The study opens up new perspectives for designing strategies to boost the activity of this tissue and prevent chronic metabolic and cardiovascular diseases as the population ages.

The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, is led by Professor Joan Villarroya, from the Faculty of Biology and the Institute of Biomedicine of the UB (IBUB) — based at the Barcelona Science Park-UB  — and the CIBER Area for Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition  (CIBEROBN). Teams from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York (United States) are also collaborating.

“Rotten egg” gas could be the answer to treating nail infections, say scientists

Nearly half of people aged over 70 suffer from nail infections, which are notoriously difficult to treat.
Photo Credit: Wang Yanwei

Hydrogen sulphide, the volcanic gas that smells of rotten eggs, could be used in a new treatment for tricky nail infections that acts faster but with fewer side effects, according to scientists at the University of Bath and King’s College London (KCL).

Nail infections are mostly caused by fungi and occasionally by bacteria. They are very common, affecting between 4-10% of the global population, rising to nearly half those aged 70 or over.

These infections can lead to complications, particularly in vulnerable groups such as diabetics and the elderly, but are notoriously difficult to treat.

Current treatments include oral antifungals taken in pill form, and topical treatments which are applied directly to the nail.

Successful bone regeneration using stem cells derived from fatty tissue

Bone formation by ADSC bone-differentiated spheroids
Treatment of a mouse with a disease similar to osteoporosis using bone-differentiated spheroids. At 8 weeks post-treatment, the bone’s strength was significantly improved.   
Image Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University

An Osaka Metropolitan University team has used stem cells extracted from adipose, the body’s fatty tissue, to treat spine fractures in rats similar to those caused by osteoporosis in humans. These cells offer the advantages of being easy to collect, even from elderly individuals, and causing little stress to the body, suggesting a non-invasive way of treating bone diseases.

Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become brittle and prone to fractures. Due to the aging of the population, the number of patients in Japan is estimated to exceed 15 million in the near future. Among osteoporosis-related fractures, compression fractures of the spine, known as osteoporotic vertebral fractures, are the most common type of fracture and pose a serious problem, leading to a need for long-term care and a significant decline in quality of life.

UQ scientists uncover secrets of yellow fever

Dr Summa Bibby
Photo Credit: The University of Queensland

University of Queensland researchers have captured the first high-resolution images of the yellow fever virus (YFV), a potentially deadly viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes that affects the liver.

They’ve revealed structural differences between the vaccine strain (YFV-17D) and the virulent, disease-causing strains of the virus.

Dr Summa Bibby from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Bioscience said despite decades of research on yellow fever, this was the first time a complete 3D structure of a fully mature yellow fever virus particle had been recorded at near-atomic resolution.

“By utilising the well-established Binjari virus platform developed here at UQ, we combined yellow fever’s structural genes with the backbone of the harmless Binjari virus and produced virus particles that could be safely examined with a cryo-electron microscope,” Dr Bibby said.

Fermentation waste used to make natural fabric

 

Penn State Professor Melik Demirel, to the far right, his students and their families wear biomanufactured sweaters. Pictured are Khushank Singhal and Oguzhan Colak, both affiliated with the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics in the College of Engineering; Ceren Colak, Ela Demirel and Emir Demirel.
Photo Credit: © Oguzhan Colak

A fermentation byproduct might help to solve two major global challenges: world hunger and the environmental impact of fast fashion. The leftover yeast from brewing beer, wine or even to make some pharmaceuticals can be repurposed to produce high-performance fibers stronger than natural fibers with significantly less environmental impact, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

The yeast biomass — composed of proteins, fatty molecules called lipids and sugars — left over from alcohol and pharmaceutical production is regarded as waste, but lead author Melik Demirel, Pearce Professor of Engineering and Huck Chair in Biomimetic Materials at Penn State, said his team realized they could repurpose the material to make fibers using a previously developed process. The researchers successfully achieved pilot-scale production of the fiber — producing more than 1,000pounds — in a factory in Germany, with continuous and batch production for more than 100 hours per run of fiber spinning.

They also used data collected during this production for a lifecycle assessment, which assessed the needs and impact of the product from obtaining the raw fermentation byproduct through its life to disposal and its cost, and to evaluate the economic viability of the technology. The analysis predicted the cost, water use, production output, greenhouse gas emissions and more at every stage. Ultimately, the researchers found that the commercial-scale production of the fermentation-based fiber could compete with wool and other fibers at scale but with considerably fewer resources, including far less land — even when accounting for the land needed to grow the crops used in the fermentation processes that eventually produce the yeast biomass.