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If Planet Nine Exists, We’ll Find It Soon

Brown and Batygin ruminated on six ETNOs and noticed something weird was going on. Unlike the eight known planets, whose orbits are approximately circular and are oriented along the same flat plane, known as the ecliptic, these six objects—including Sedna—had elliptical orbits and were tilted about 20 degrees with respect to the ecliptic. The six also made their closest approaches to the sun in the same region of space. They were all too far out to be within Neptune’s gravitational reach, but something appeared to have crafted their orbits.

Brown and Batygin’s computer models suggested the only reasonable possibility was a hidden planet with a mass five to 10 times that of Earth orbiting as far as 700 AU away. This world, perhaps one exiled from the warmer confines of the solar system during its chaotic earlier years, managed to cling to the sun’s gravitational ropes. And as it whirled through the distant darkness, it wielded its own gravitational influence on those passing six orbs, herding them into similar, strange new orbits.

The winter solstice is Saturday, bringing the shortest day and longest night of the year to the Northern Hemisphere—ideal conditions for holiday lights and warm blankets.

For those who would rather have more sunlight, you can try to make your way to the Southern Hemisphere, where it is summer. Or be patient: Starting Sunday, days will get a little bit longer in the Northern Hemisphere every single day until late June.

These annual changes in sunlight as the Earth revolves around the sun have been well known to humans for centuries. Monuments such as Stonehenge in England and the Torreon at Peru's Machu Picchu were designed in part to align with solstices.

The discovery is exceptional, not only because of the number of fossil remains found, but also because it is the oldest known gorgonopsian on the planet, the lineage of saber-toothed predators that would eventually give rise to mammals

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Weeks of reported drone sightings in the skies above New Jersey and several other US states has led to speculation and misinformation.

BBC Verify investigates some of the most viral false claims. Presented by Jake Horton

In a remarkable discovery, a Hispano-Egyptian archaeological team has uncovered extraordinary human remains, including 13 tongues and golden nails, within tombs dating back to the Ptolemaic period in the historic region of Al-Bahnasa, located in Egypt’s Minia Governorate.

In ancient Egypt, the placement of golden tongues on mummies carried profound symbolic and ritual significance. It was believed that these golden tongues enabled the deceased to communicate with the gods in the afterlife.

Gold, revered as a divine and imperishable material, symbolized eternity and purity. Similarly, the golden nails may have been intended to preserve the deceased’s appearance in its most idealized form, ensuring their dignity and readiness for the afterlife.

Roughly the size of an iPad, the basalt tablet features just 39 different characters in 60 inscriptions written left to right across seven lines. Each carved symbol began as a series of holes made with a cone-shaped drill, connected into flowing lines with a smooth, round tool.

Although new to researchers, the 'letters' are similar enough to scripts from the Middle East and undeciphered symbols from pre-Christian Georgia to make forgery by non-scholars a relatively unlikely explanation for the finding.

The region's written records date back to a list of clergy taking part in a council in the early 6th century, coinciding with the spread of Christianity through the region. Prior to that, archeology provides evidence of settlement and metalworking dating back thousands of years, with fossils of early human relatives reaching further through time.

Beyond the Dmanisi region, Georgia's ancient territories were a melting pot of cultures that left their mark in a variety of scripts. Epigraphs written in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Middle Persian have been uncovered in the ancient capital of Mtskheta, 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) north of the country's current capital, Tbilisi.

Why It’s a Bad Idea to Shoot at New Jersey ‘Mystery Drones’

Surging reports of strange drones in the skies over New Jersey and other parts of the northeast U.S. have spurred calls to shoot down the unidentified objects. But that’s a very bad idea

Many of these “drones” aren’t drones at all

While some number of the sightings are almost certainly real drones being operated by unknown parties for unclear reasons, according to the FBI, most of the thousands of New Jersey drone reports are consistent with witnesses misidentifying crewed aircraft. “In overlaying the visual sightings reported to the FBI with approach patterns for Newark-Liberty, JFK, and LaGuardia airports, the density of reported sightings matches the approach patterns of these very busy airports, with flights coming in throughout the night,” FBI officials noted in a White House media briefing Saturday. “This modeling is indicative of manned aviation being quite often mistaken for unmanned aviation or UAS [uncrewed aerial systems].”

When Chinese flying tree frogs (Polypedates dennysi) leap through the forests of China and Southeast Asia, a single missed connection could send them plummeting to a slimy end. Fortunately, they’ve evolved a few lifesaving contortions to grab hold of vertical branches and trunks.

Evolving, but not always forward

Ferns have multiple reproductive strategies. Most species combine spore development and photosynthesis on a single leaf type – a strategy called monomorphism. Others separate these functions to have one leaf type for photosynthesis and another for reproduction – a strategy called dimorphism.

Within a family known as chain ferns (Blechnaceae), we found multiple cases in which plants had evolved highly specialized dimorphism, but then reverted to the more general form of monomorphism.

Oxford analysis shows evidence of bloody massacre, with hand and feet bones chewed by human molars

A collection of human bones discovered 50 years ago in a Somerset pit are evidence of the bloodiest known massacre in British prehistory – and of bronze age cannibalism, archaeologists say.

At least 37 men, women and children were killed at some point between 2200BC and 2000BC, with their bodies thrown into a deep natural shaft at Charterhouse Warren, near Cheddar Gorge.

The first major scientific study since the bones were unearthed in the 1970s has now concluded that after their violent deaths, the individuals were dismembered and butchered, and at least some were eaten.

Many of the victims’ skulls were shattered by the blows that killed them, and leg and arm bones had been cut away after death to extract the bone marrow. Hand and feet bones show evidence of having been chewed by human molars.

In their paper, the authors cover other factors like cell size and the factors that limit the size of unicellular organisms and larger, more complex organisms. They conclude that fully autonomous living habitats can’t be ruled out. “Nonetheless, a fully autonomous system capable of regeneration and growth is apparently not prohibited by any physical or chemical constraints and is therefore interesting to consider a little further.”

It’s possible as long as the system can regenerate its walls. The authors point out that existing photosynthetic life can already produce amorphous silica and organic polymers. These materials could serve as walls and at least show that there’s a pathway where organisms could evolve to create habitat walls. “A more autonomous living habitat would be able to grow its own wall material, just as plant cells regenerate their own walls on the micrometre scale.”

We tend to think that if life exists elsewhere, it follows the same evolutionary pathway as it did here on Earth, but that may not be true. “Because the evolution of life elsewhere may have followed very different pathways from on Earth, living habitats could also exist outside traditional habitable environments around other stars, where they would have unusual but potentially detectable biosignatures.”

Conventional thinking goes that the Big Bang was the beginning of everything – matter, dark matter, space, energy, all of it. After the event itself, the Universe went through a period of cosmic inflation, which saw its size swell by a factor of 10 septillion within an unfathomable fraction of a second.

But some theories suggest that this inflation period actually occurred before what we call the Big Bang. And now, physicists at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin have proposed that dark matter was formed during this brief window.

The team calls the new model warm inflation via freeze-in, or WIFI. Basically, dark matter particles would be created from tiny interactions between radiation and particles in a warm 'thermal bath' during the inflation period.

Astronomers have found some unusual planetary systems, including planets that orbit around two stars. These are circumbinary planets, and it takes special conditions to be stable. Even if the planets can remain in orbit around both stars, what about their moons? Astronomers haven't found any exomoons yet, but a new paper explores the conditions under which they could form and survive. This is exciting because many would be in the habitable zone of the binary stars.

Suppose that we have definitively detected extraterrestrial life. It could be simple, unicellular organisms on Mars or Europa, complex alien fauna in a distant exoplanet, or even an advanced civilization reaching out to us. The exact form and location are not as crucial as the fact of their existence itself. This revelation would undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for our society, politics, military, and economy.

In fact, humans are the only habitat for Demodex folliculorum. They are born on us, they feed on us, they mate on us, and they die on us.

Their entire life cycle revolves around munching your dead skin cells before kicking the teeny tiny bucket.

So reliant is D. folliculorum on humans for their survival, research suggests, that the microscopic mites are in the process of evolving from an ectoparasite into an internal symbiont – and one that shares a mutually beneficial relationship with its hosts (that's us).

In other words, these mites are gradually merging with our bodies so that they now live permanently within us.

Source paper:

Human Follicular Mites: Ectoparasites Becoming Symbionts

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/39/6/msac125/6604544?login=false

Mysterious drone sightings over New Jersey and New York State are underscoring the high number of these vehicles in the U.S.

For weeks, residents of New Jersey and neighboring states have been baffled by high numbers of mysterious drone sightings, and the reports are an eye-catching reminder of just how many of these small vehicles fly in the U.S. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates civilian drones in the country, is no stranger to investigating reports of uncrewed aircraft sightings, tallying more than 400 such incidents between July and September 2024 alone.

Signed exactly 76 years ago today, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the world’s most translated document. It is widely acknowledged as the foundation of international human rights work, not just in legal settings but in wider civil society.

But few know that among the many social and political freedoms defined by the declaration is a human right to science. Article 27 of the declaration positions this right in the cultural sphere, stating:

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

Animals Evolved Color Vision before Bright Colors Emerged

Bold hues of red, orange, yellow, blue and purple help plants and animals communicate with their own species and others in their efforts to survive. Vivid orange dart frogs warn predators of their toxicity. Different birds use a rainbow of plumage to attract mates. Flowers in a rainbow of colors lure birds and bees to disperse pollen and seeds.

The coloration of living things has evolved slowly: colorful fruitlike seeds started dotting an otherwise bland landscape around 300 million years ago, vibrant flowering plants appeared 100 million years later, and animals—namely cockroaches and butterflies—started sporting bolder pigmentation 70 million years after that. But now, in a puzzling twist, new research shows that animals’ ability to perceive many colors came long before the colors themselves existed for them to see.

• Infinity contains everything, including multiple kinds of infinities.

• Mathematicians have long known that there are many kinds of infinities (technically, there are an infinity of them).

• Mathematicians revealed two new kinds of infinity—called exacting and ultra-exacting—infinities that appear to contradict foundational mathematics.

The concept of “infinity” appears simple at first glance, but becomes increasing more complex the more you think about it. Infinity means a never-ending sequence of numbers trailing off into, well, infinity. But that also necessitates that there’s technically an infinite number of infinities forming a hierarchy of ever-greater complexity.

In 1950, researchers found a skull and spine fragments at the bottom of a Czech cave called Zlatý kůň. Stone tools and mammal fossils found nearby suggested the bones were very old, and the skull’s shape led archaeologists to guess it belonged to a woman. Her age was a mystery, however, as the organic glue conservators had used to piece her bones together threw off radiocarbon dating techniques.

Now, researchers have found her relatives by analyzing DNA from the bones of six individuals buried in a German cave called Ranis 230 kilometers away. The findings, out this week in Nature, pin down when the Zlatý kůň woman lived to about 45,000 years ago and shed light on the remarkably mobile lifestyle of the earliest groups of modern humans to enter Europe. And the new data add to evidence that soon after modern humans left Africa, just a few thousand years earlier, they began extensive, enduring trysts with Neanderthals, the human cousins who had occupied Europe for hundreds of thousands of years.

Named “Ninumbeehan dookoodukah” by Eastern Shoshone students and elders, the creature burrowed in riverbeds to stay moist during extreme droughts

In prehistoric times, western Wyoming was a land of lethal extremes. When it rained, it poured for months on end, and when the monsoons ceased, the area became so hot and dry that it was deadly for animals like amphibians, which require moist skin to stay alive.

But, according to a recent study, a newly discovered species of salamander-like amphibian found a strategy to survive roughly 230 million years ago. The creature waited out the harsh climate of the Late Triassic by burrowing deep into moist riverbeds to avoid drying out between monsoon seasons in a process known as seasonal estivation.

A collaborative study has revealed evidence of rice beer production dating back approximately 10,000 years at the Shangshan site in Zhejiang Province, China. This groundbreaking discovery sheds light on the origins of alcoholic beverage brewing in East Asia and its connection to early rice cultivation and societal development.

The findings underscore the role of rice fermentation at Shangshan, reflecting the interplay between cultural practices and the region’s environmental conditions. They also provide valuable context for understanding the emergence of rice-based agriculture and its influence on ancient social structures.

Fourteen thousand years ago, hunter gatherer grown-ups in Spain’s Las Monedas Cave were busy making serious cave art. Dozens of charcoal drawings depict reindeer, bison, and other ice age mammals in realistic detail.

Kids, meanwhile, were apparently shooed off to their own corner of the cave. There, on a flat stretch of wall at toddler’s eye level, children seem to have etched a series of doodles that wouldn’t be out of place in a modern kindergarten class. The youngsters were between 3 and 6 years old and working alone.

The concept of communicating with non-human life forms is an area of study that spans across many scientific disciplines. Over the years, researchers have attempted to understand and interpret the signals and behaviors of animals with the aim of deciphering their unique “languages”. These studies range from interactions with our domestic pets to the complex social structures of primates and cetaceans.

This article reviews research in this area and highlights its relevance to potential future interactions with intelligent extraterrestrial life.

Prior research has shown that it is possible to connect electronics to live insects such as cockroaches to remotely control their behavior without hurting them. The technology is typically in the form of a small backpack containing communication and electrical processing, and probes that stimulate the insect. Stimulating the left antenna, for example, can cause a cockroach to turn left.