A new breakthrough in cosmic mapping has unveiled the structure of a colossal filament, part of the vast cosmic web that connects galaxies.
Dark matter and gas shape these filaments, but their faint glow makes them hard to detect. By using advanced telescope technology and hundreds of hours of observation, astronomers have captured the most detailed image yet, bringing us closer to decoding the evolution of galaxies and the hidden forces shaping the universe.
The hidden order of the universe.
Ancient texts warn of love turning into hatred, as seen in stories like Cain and Abel or “Et tu, Brute?” This talk explores the neurobiology of hatred based on the biology of love: the oxytocin system, attachment networks, and biobehavioral synchrony, which mature through mother-infant bonding and later support group solidarity and out-group hostility. Using this model, we developed Tools of Dialogue© for Israeli and Palestinian youth. After 8 sessions, participants showed reduced hostility, increased empathy, hormonal changes (lower cortisol, higher oxytocin), and lasting attitudes of compromise. Seven years later, these changes supported their peacebuilding efforts, showing how social synchrony can transform hatred into reciprocity and cooperation. Recorded on 02/14/2025. [Show ID: 40386]
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Science and technology continue to change our lives. University of California scientists are tackling the important questions like climate change, evolution, oceanography, neuroscience and the potential of stem cells.
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New research on the inner ear morphology of Neanderthals and their ancestors challenges the widely accepted theory that Neanderthals originated after an evolutionary event that implied the loss of part of their genetic diversity. The findings, based on fossil samples from Atapuerca (Spain) and Krapina (Croatia), as well as from various European and Western Asian sites have been published in Nature Communications.
Neanderthals emerged about 250,000 years ago from European populations—referred to as “pre-Neanderthals”—that inhabited the Eurasian continent between 500,000 and 250,000 years ago. It was long believed that no significant changes occurred throughout the evolution of Neanderthals, yet recent paleogenetic research based on DNA samples extracted from fossils revealed the existence of a drastic genetic diversity loss event between early Neanderthals (or ancient Neanderthals) and later ones (also referred to as “classic” Neanderthals).
Technically known as a “bottleneck,” this genetic loss is frequently the consequence of a reduction in the number of individuals in a population. Paleogenetic data indicate that the decline in genetic variation took place approximately 110,000 years ago.
A new study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology (MPI-EB) sheds fresh light on one of the most debated concepts in biology: evolvability. The work provides the first experimental evidence showing how natural selection can shape genetic systems to enhance future capacity for evolution, challenging traditional perspectives on evolutionary processes.
The research is published in the journal Science. A related Perspective article also appears in Science.
The ability of organisms to generate adaptive genetic variation is crucial for evolutionary success, particularly in changing environments. The MPI-EB study investigates whether natural selection operates not merely as a “blind” process driven by random mutations but could actively favor mechanisms that channel mutations toward adaptive outcomes.
Humanity can farm more food from the seas to help feed the planet while shrinking mariculture’s negative impacts on biodiversity, according to new research led by the University of Michigan.
There is a catch, though: We need to be strategic about it.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Isolated by mountains along the East African Rift is Lake Tanganyika. More than 400 miles long, it is the continent’s deepest lake and accounts for 16% of the world’s available freshwater. Between 2 and 3 million years ago, the number of virus species infecting fish in that immense lake exploded, and in a new study, UC Santa Cruz researchers propose that this explosion was perhaps triggered by the explosion of a distant star.
The new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, led by recent undergraduate student Caitlyn Nojiri and co-authored by astronomy and astrophysics professor Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz and postdoctoral fellow Noémie Globus, examined iron isotopes to identify a 2.5 million-year-old supernova.
The researchers connected this stellar explosion to a surge of radiation that pummeled Earth around the same time, and they assert that the blast was powerful enough to break the DNA of living creatures—possibly driving those viruses in Lake Tanganyika to mutate into new species.
For the study, the researchers used NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope to observe Sagittarius A* to better understand its activity. After conducting several observations between 2023 and 2024, the researchers found that Sagittarius A* exhibited near-endless flare activity, ranging from faint flashes lasting a few seconds to massive eruptions occurring every day. Since Sagittarius A* interacts with the massive disk of gas and dust that comprises our galaxy, these results could help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes throughout the universe.
“Flares are expected to happen in essentially all supermassive black holes, but our black hole is unique,” said Dr. Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, who is a professor at northwestern University and lead author of the study. “It is always bubbling with activity and never seems to reach a steady state. We observed the black hole multiple times throughout 2023 and 2024, and we noticed changes in every observation. We saw something different each time, which is really remarkable. Nothing ever stayed the same.”
A new study examines how complex chemical mixtures evolve under changing environmental conditions, offering insights into the prebiotic processes that may have led to life. Researchers exposed organic molecules to repeated wet-dry cycles and observed continuous transformations, selective organization, and synchronized population dynamics.
The findings indicate that environmental conditions played a crucial role in fostering the molecular complexity necessary for life’s emergence. By simulating early Earth’s conditions, the team found that instead of reacting randomly, molecules self-organized, evolved over time, and followed predictable patterns.
This challenges the notion that early chemical evolution was purely chaotic. Instead, the study suggests that natural environmental fluctuations guided the formation of increasingly complex molecules, ultimately contributing to the development of life’s fundamental building blocks.
“What we found was surprising: a jet stream rotates material around the planet’s equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side,” said Dr. Julia Victoria Seidel.
What can a 3D map of an exoplanet’s atmosphere teach scientists about its weather patterns? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as an international team of researchers successfully produced the first 3D map of an exoplanet’s atmosphere, which is a groundbreaking achievement and will help scientists gain new insights into the formation and evolution of exoplanet atmospheres throughout the cosmos.
For the study, the researchers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) to observe WASP-121b, nicknamed Tylos, which is designated as an ultra-hot Jupiter that orbits its parent star in only 1.3 days (30 hours) and is located approximately 880 light-years from Earth. Due to its extremely close orbit, Tylos is tidally locked to its parent star, meaning one side is always facing it, resulting in searing temperatures on the sunlit side and incredibly cold temperatures on the far side.
In the end, the researchers successfully produced a 3D map of Tylos’ atmosphere, revealing weather patterns that include high-velocity winds carrying titanium and iron around the exoplanet, which becomes even more turbulent as the winds cross from the far side to the day side of Tylos. Additionally, this also marks the first time astronomers have produced a 3D map of an exoplanet’s atmosphere.
Using in vitro models to study human brain evolution and diseaseCSAR lecture by Dr. Madeline Lancaster, MRC Laboratory of Molecular BiologyThe human brain is…