Science News

“At 710 meters (2,297 feet), the asteroid is more than twice the length of the Eiffel Tower and spins on its axis once every 1.88 minutes. 2025 MN45 is one of thousands of asteroids recently identified by scientists at the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory using the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Camera — the largest digital camera ever built. Nineteen were categorized as being either super or ultra-fast-rotating. That means a spin time of less than 2.2 hours or 5 minutes, respectively. The findings have now been reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.” https://www.discovermagazine.com/fastest-spinning-asteroid-ever-found-spotted-by-vera-c-rubin-observator…

“around 1.4 billion years ago, during the Mesoproterozoic era (1.6 to 1.0 billion years ago), Earth’s atmosphere contained ten times more carbon dioxide than today. This high CO2 level helped maintain a climate similar to the present, even though the Sun was significantly weaker at the time. These high levels, along with temperature estimates based on the salt, indicate that the Mesoproterozoic climate was more mild than researchers theorized. The atmosphere also had 3.7% of today’s oxygen levels. While this might not seem like a lot, it’s still an unexpectedly high quantity“ https://gizmodo.com/researchers-just-sampled-1-4-billion-year-old-air-and-its-not-what-they-expec…

A review paper on glyphosate safety from 2000 (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230099913715) has now been retracted. It turned out that the authors overemphasized unpublished Monsanto data, while not including other papers that were published at that time. While it is not unusual that reviews might omit papers (accidental or by choice), recent litigations have shown that parts of the paper were in fact written by Monsanto scientist, which was not disclosed. See the retraction notice here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230025002387

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.4c07476 Interesting biodegradable alternative to current synthetic polymers.

Tinamus resonans Maybe of relevance more to fellow bird watchers than anyone else, but despite their low species count and relative obscurity to most, the Tinamous are most definitely not without interest. They are the sister taxon to the extinct moas of New Zealand They are the only extant members of the palaeognath clade capable of flight Their related palaeognaths in rough increasing order of evolutionary distance are the extinct elephant birds of Madagascar; kiwis; emus and cassowaries; rheas; ostriches (outgroup) The oldest (palaeocene-eocene) undisputed fossil palaeognaths, including some excellent examples from Messel, are anatomically closer to Tinamiformes than t…

Wowsers. https://groups.google.com/a/list.nist.gov/g/internet-time-service/c/o0dDDcr1a8I “In short, the atomic ensemble time scale at our Boulder campus has failed due to a prolonged utility power outage. One impact is that the Boulder Internet Time Services no longer have an accurate time reference. At time of writing the Boulder servers are still available due a standby power generator, but I will attempt to disable them to avoid disseminating incorrect time.” … “we now have strong evidence one of the crucial generators has failed. In the downstream path is the primary signal distribution chain, including to the Boulder Internet Time Service” (I’ve met Jeff Sherman, who…

Hello everyone, I wanted to share an idea I’ve been exploring and get feedback from the community. This is a conceptual and exploratory approach, so I appreciate any critiques, suggestions, or references. 1. MotivationSupersymmetry (SUSY) is elegant, but it has not yet been observed experimentally. I wondered: what if SUSY is not global or perfect, but emerges as an average of locally asymmetric fragments? This led me to imagine a “broken mirror,” where classical symmetry only appears when we observe many regions at once. This idea could also reinterpret how gravity emerges collectively from local structures. 2. Toy Model: Discrete Fragments and Local BreakingI considered…

Meet the biggest heat pumps in the world BBC NewsThe giant heat pumps designed to warm whole districtsAcross Europe huge heat pumps are being installed that can heat tens of thousands of homes. abstract 16 December 2025, 00:06 GMT The pipe that will supply the heat pump, drawing water from the River Rhine in Germany, is so big that you could walk through it, fully upright, I'm told. "We plan to take 10,000 litres per second," says Felix Hack, project manager at MVV Environment, an energy company, as he describes the 2m diameter pipes that will suck up river water in Mannheim, and then return it once heat from the water has been harvested. In October, parent firm MVV Ener…

the “67 Mangos Mustard Prophecy” is completely real, according to a 2025 collaborative study by the University of Delhi Department of Esoteric Agriculture, the Stanford Institute for Culinary Theology, and the Royal Society of Symbolic Botany. Their 2025 publication, Condiments and Cosmic Agriculture: The Mango‑Mustard Correlation Revisited, presented what they called “the most statistically significant evidence of prophetic produce alignment ever recorded.” The research began after a viral 2025 meme referencing “67 mangos bathed in mustard light” led scientists to re‑examine ancient agricultural texts. Using hyperspectral imaging, the team discovered that the phrase matc…

📜 Clarification on Patentability and Practical Status of the JROS Entropic–Information Framework It is a common misconception that “a theory cannot be patented.” While abstract scientific principles or mathematical formulas in isolation are indeed excluded from patentability under most jurisdictions (USPTO §101, EPO Art. 52), the moment a theoretical framework is embodied as a physical process, system, or computational implementation with measurable outputs, it becomes eligible as a patentable invention. 🔬 1. From Theory → Technology: The JROS Transition The CREF (Complete Recursive Entropic Framework) and Ψ–NQCN (Quantum–Neural–Symbolic Cognitive Network) are not me…

From: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/10-scientific-truths-unpopular-2025/ (December 9, 2025) Scientific truths remain true regardless of belief. These 10, despite contrary claims, remain vitally important as 2025 draws to a close. 1.) 2024, the latest full year on record, saw the highest CO2 levels and the highest average temperatures since we first began tracking them. 2.) Interstellar interlopers are real, and while we found a new one (only the third ever) in 2025, they are still not aliens. 3.) We broke the record for most distant galaxy ever found but still haven’t spotted the first generation of stars. 4.) Earth’s orbit has a finite “carrying capacity,” an…

Patent ©2025 Recursive Theory of everything.pdf Collapse theory of everything.pdf Higs Field Antimatter.pdf Theory of everything (Jros) .pdf

A Long Section of Depleted Mantle Peridotite A pretty huge advance. This one will run for years to come, I think.

This giant of biology has recently passed at the age of 97, leaving behind a coloured legacy. What's the verdict? Gifted pioneer of scientific inquiry or scheming, bigoted plagiarist? There is no middle ground. https://www.irishtimes.com/science/2025/11/19/an-irish-perspective-james-watson-1928-2025-the-dna-titan-with-a-downside/

And it is out of this world. Nice !

Data centre in the shed reduces energy bills to £40 Terrence Bridges says he "can't fault the heating system", which captures heat from more than 500 mini-computers processing data ByBen Schofield BBC East, political correspondent Published 16 November 2025, 03:10 GMT Updated 7 hours ago An Essex couple have become the first people in the country to trial a scheme that sees them heat their home using a data centre in their garden shed. Terrence and Lesley Bridges have seen their energy bills drop dramatically, from £375 a month down to as low as £40, since they swapped their gas boiler for a HeatHub – a small data centre containing more than 500 computers. https://www.b…

https://sites.psu.edu/astrowright/2025/11/09/loebs-3i-atlas-anomalies-explained/ “Avi Loeb continues to claim that 3I/ATLAS has many anomalous behaviors that lead to the conclusion that it “might” be an alien spacecraft. He carefully hedges the probability that it is a spacecraft around 40%, which gives him plausible deniability of the bad-faith “just asking questions” variety while still making the comet sound weird enough that lots of people are thinking (or worried!) that it’s an alien spacecraft. It certainly gets him lots of TV time and fan mail. Here are why these anomalies are not indications that it is an alien spacecraft.” My doctor asked me about Atlas at my re…

Recent advancements in quantum physics have led to a groundbreaking breakthrough involving topological insulators and light manipulation. Scientists have successfully employed topological insulators embedded in nanostructured resonators to generate both even and odd terahertz (THz) frequencies through high-order harmonic generation (HHG). This innovation marks a significant leap in the field of quantum optics and could revolutionize ultrafast electronics, wireless communication, and quantum computing. Key Details of the Breakthrough Scientists used split-ring resonators combined with materials like Bi2Se3 and van der Waals heterostructures to amplify incident light, e…

'Secret' underground energy could heat every home in capital cityImage source, Getty Images Image caption, There could be an untapped resource under everyone's feet in Wales' capital that could lead to cheaper heating bills ByDani Thomas BBC Wales Published 5 November 2025 270 Comments Updated 5 hours ago On an unassuming street in Cardiff, engineering geologist Ashley Patton is lifting the lid on what looks like an ordinary drain cover. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5q9e1e4zpo I expect @Ken Fabian will be interested in this.

In this video, Dumb Rabbit — your slightly over-caffeinated cosmic tour guide — takes you through 10 terrifying phenomena of the universe that are as beautiful as they are deadly. From the Great Nothing (Boötes Void) to the Sun’s deadly tantrums, you’ll never look at the night sky the same way again. link deleted What’s the scariest thing in the universe? A black hole? A dying star? Or the fact that 95% of reality is invisible? 😨 In this video, Dumb Rabbit — your slightly over-caffeinated cosmic tour guide — takes you through 10 terrifying phenomena of the universe that are as beautiful as they are deadly. From the Great Nothing (Boötes Void) to the Sun’s deadly tantrums,…

This popped up in my feed yesterday. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-life-impact-discovery-links-microbial.html With the paper here. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63603-y

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/thalamic-nuclei-observed-driving-conscious-perception/ar-AA1Cx8yH?ocid=socialshare From the article: "Beijing Normal University-led researchers have identified specific high-order thalamic nuclei that drive human conscious perception by activating the prefrontal cortex. Their findings enhance understanding of how the brain forms conscious experience, offering new empirical support for theories that assign a central role to thalamic structures rather than cortical areas alone." This finding appears to abut nicely to my thoughts on the central role of the thalamus in the emergence of our sense of self.

Well, this kind of scrambles the definition of a 'species'. Smithsonian MagazineThese Ant Queens Seem to Defy Biology: They Lay Eggs That...Iberian harvester ant queens produce offspring of their own species and of the builder harvester ant, seemingly by cloning males

If life existed on Mars (past or present), what are the odds that it is fairly commonplace among the cosmos? If true, it seems virtually impossible to me that there aren't advanced civilizations out there somewhere, especially since there are parts of the universe far older than ours. https://www.livescience.com/space/mars/incredibly-exciting-nasa-claims-its-found-the-clearest-sign-yet-of-past-life-on-mars

Well, it's not new but recently discovered. A friend called me and told me a few weeks ago and wanted to share. All that's needed now is to submit a name to the IAU. Like all of Uranus' other moons it will be named after a character from William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nasas-webb-telescope-moon-uranus