In a major new confirmation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, the LARES-2 (Laser Relativity Satellite 2) has measured frame dragging around Earth with unprecedented precision.

Ignazio Ciufolini of China’s Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics led the team behind a new paper published in Nature reporting the most precise measurement of the effect to date. The researchers reduced the uncertainty to just 0.2 percent, compared with several percent—and in some cases as much as 10 percent—in previous measurements.

Also known as the Lense-Thirring effect, named for the physicists who modeled it in 1918, frame dragging is the pull of a rotating mass on spacetime. The phenomenon was first predicted in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

Seeking Frame Dragging

Frame dragging becomes more pronounced around faster-spinning and more massive objects. For this reason, its effects are far stronger around black holes than around comparatively small bodies such as Earth. Some black holes possess millions or even billions of times the Sun’s mass, producing an immense distortion of the surrounding spacetime.

LARES-2, a satellite developed by the Italian Space Agency, made the new measurement possible. Its appearance has been compared to a golf ball or a disco ball, with its 303 corner-cube retroreflectors creating golf-ball-like divots on its surface, which is composed of a nickel-chromium alloy called Inconel 718.

The spacecraft is remarkably simple, with no thrusters, solar panels, or onboard electronics cluttering its compact, 16-inch-wide frame. Despite its small size, LARES-2 weighs roughly 650 pounds. This combination gives it the lowest area-to-mass ratio of any satellite in medium Earth orbit, minimizing the influence of nongravitational forces on its motion.

Measuring Frame Dragging

The effect of gravitation on the object was then measured by bombarding it with ground-based lasers, which the retroreflectors bounce back to the surface. Ciufolini’s team collected roughly 200,000 of these observations between July 2022 and June 2025, with one-millimeter precision, forming the dataset from which they calculated the frame-dragging effect.

The method presents a significant challenge, however. Earth is an oblate spheroid, with bulging sides created by centrifugal force, rather than a perfect sphere, which produces Newtonian forces that interfere with the frame-dragging signal. To mitigate this issue, the researchers used another satellite in a supplementary orbit, canceling out the effect of the opposing Newtonian forces.

That second satellite was NASA’s LAGEOS, launched in 1976. The orbital planes of LAGEOS and LARES-2 differ by 180.01 degrees—remarkably close to the ideal separation of 180 degrees.

A Final Challenge

One additional complication remained: the K1 lunisolar tide, a variation in Earth’s gravitational field produced by the combined influence of the Moon and Sun. Time provided the solution. Over the tide’s 1,050-day precession cycle, its effects average out and can be removed from the data.

After accounting for these sources of interference, the researchers measured a drift of 61.3 milliarcseconds per year in the satellites’ orbits caused by Earth’s frame dragging. The result closely matches the value predicted by general relativity, with only a narrow margin of uncertainty.

The researchers say the true value of their finding lies not just in confirming general relativity, but also in limiting the scope of the Chern-Simons theory, which seeks to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics for a Theory of Everything. Of more limited concern, the work also provided the most precise K1 tide measurement ever recorded, which could prove important to future Earth science research.

The paper, “LARES-2 Satellite Measures Frame-Dragging Effect Around the Earth,” appeared in Nature on July 8, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have astronomers on the brink of solving another long-standing astronomical mystery: how do supermassive black holes feed?

Astronomers from the Université de Montréal led an international team in the new research, reported in a recent paper in The Astrophysical Journal, which presents the clearest images ever recorded of gaseous filaments connecting a galaxy’s atmosphere to the rotating disk that the supermassive black hole feeds on.

The team’s analysis of the data paves the way toward understanding how black holes consume matter, a mystery that has stumped astronomers for decades.

Strange Black Hole Feeding

“JWST observations are offering us thousands of new facts and measurements, and I can report it’s a lot to absorb,” said co-author Megan Donahue, MSU University Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy. “We are all working together to solve the astrophysics questions about how these black holes get their fuel and how they interact with their host galaxy.”

Supermassive black holes anchor most galaxies in the universe, with masses ranging from millions to billions of times that of the Sun. In active galactic nuclei (AGN), these central black holes both consume enormous amounts of surrounding material and unleash powerful jets that shape the galaxies around them.

This activity presents a longstanding puzzle. Because an AGN’s jets heat the surrounding gas, they should effectively cut off the black hole’s fuel supply, leaving astronomers to wonder how it continues to accrete matter.

Testing a Hypothesis

To investigate, the researchers tested the leading explanation: that heated gas eventually cools, condenses into long filaments, and falls back toward the galactic center, replenishing the black hole’s supply of material.

They turned JWST toward one of the best natural laboratories for studying AGN: the galaxy NGC 4696, located at the heart of the Centaurus Cluster, roughly 145 million light-years from Earth.

Using JWST’s NIRSpec instrument, the team collected eight hours of observations, mapping the motion of gas deep within the galaxy—where the black hole’s gravitational influence dominates—at a resolution of about 30 light-years.

Their observations revealed an 800-light-year-wide disk of gas orbiting the supermassive black hole at roughly 600 kilometers per second. Connected to this rapidly rotating disk was a large infalling filament, funneling gas inward to feed the AGN.

Feeding Cycle of the Black Hole

The discovery fills in a crucial missing piece of the puzzle surrounding how supermassive black holes sustain themselves. The researchers propose that after the black hole injects energy into the surrounding gas, heating it, that material eventually cools and collapses into thin filaments stretching hundreds of thousands of light-years. Guided by magnetic fields, these filaments then fall toward the galaxy’s center, where they accumulate in the rotating accretion disk.

The team also ran a series of computer simulations based on this model and found that the predicted behavior closely matched what JWST observed. While additional observations will be needed to confirm the results, the findings provide strong support for the filament-feeding hypothesis.

“It’s been really exciting to participate in this project,” co-author Mark Voit, an MSU Physics and Astronomy Professor, said in a statement.

“Calculations done by our Michigan State group predict that magnetic fields should help feed the universe’s biggest black holes by channeling cool gas toward them, and it’s amazing to see that happening in these JWST images,” he added.

The paper, “JWST Reveals How Lack Holes Are Fed: Kiloparsec-Scale Multiphase Filaments Feed Sub-Kiloparsec Circumnuclear Disks,” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 14, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

A Maya astronomer’s identity has been revealed for the first time, discovered in an inscription at the Xultun site in Guatemala, finally revealing a name behind their storied knowledge.

Despite the Maya’s renowned knowledge of math and astronomy, no individual had ever been directly associated with those accomplishments, unlike figures such as the Greek scholars Ptolemy or Archimedes.

Now, in a recent paper published in Antiquity, an international team of archaeologists has identified a name linked to the Maya’s sophisticated mathematical knowledge: Sak Tahn Waax.

Advanced Maya Knowledge

From around 2000 BCE until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, the Maya flourished across the Yucatán Peninsula, building a civilization renowned not only for its political and economic power, but also for its remarkable scientific and mathematical achievements. Although relatively few Maya texts survived the Spanish conquest, those that remain—along with archaeological evidence—show that the Maya precisely calculated the length of the solar year and carefully tracked the movements of the Moon and Venus across the sky.

The art, architecture, and glyphic texts of the Classic Maya likewise reflect a sophisticated understanding of the natural world, interwoven with Indigenous cosmological traditions.

That expertise shaped nearly every aspect of Maya society. Their intricate calendars guided agriculture, informed religious observances, and influenced political life. Yet despite the importance of this knowledge, the individuals responsible for developing it have largely remained anonymous.

A Name Revealed

Meaning “white-chested fox,” the name Sak Tahn Waax appears on a wall engraved with mathematical formulas, which archaeologists dated to the eighth century CE using inscribed dates and radiocarbon analysis. Researchers believe the room likely served as either a classroom or a workshop for producing books.

The inscription was first documented shortly after excavations began at Xultun in 2011. Although the team initially focused on other priorities at the site, deciphering the text remained an enduring objective.

Reading the inscription required years of laboratory work using color scans and multispectral imaging. After reconstructing the wall’s faded engravings, the researchers determined that the text contained instructions for synchronizing the planetary cycles of Mars and Venus with the Maya calendar, concluding with the signature, “so says Sak Tahn Waax.”

“It’s really elegant, complex math,” said co-author Heather Hurst, an archaeologist at Skidmore College. “That’s why he’s signing it.”

Maya Signatures

The strangest thing about the discovery may be how common signatures are in other elements of Maya life. Artists and scribes often signed ceramics, while important political and military figures’ names often adorn stelae and buildings. Despite this propensity to name individual Maya on things, those responsible for their legendary knowledge of math and science largely remain unknown.

The archaeologists behind this new study now suggest that those names may be available after all; it is only that researchers have not known where to look.

“There’s good evidence for codex book production,” said lead author Franco Rossi, an archaeologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “So if there’s going to be a name … this would be the most logical place.”

The researchers hope the discovery will inspire a deeper appreciation for Maya history and for the scholars whose work shaped the civilization.

“I would have loved to see Sak Tahn Waax and Ptolemy hanging out,” Hurst concluded. “They would have had a great discussion.”

The paper, “The Identification and Work of an Eighth-Century Maya Mathematician,” appeared in Antiquity on July 14, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

For decades, physicists have debated Richard Feynman’s famous Sprinkler Problem—the question of how a reverse sprinkler would behave—and now researchers may have finally found the answer.

Made famous in Feynman’s 1985 memoir, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, the problem concerns the spin direction of a sprinkler-like device inside a pool that draws water inward instead of spreading it out. The researchers revealed their experimental results, based on tests with a variety of custom sprinklers, in a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adding new life to the long-standing physics debate.

Feynman Experiments

“This work provides the experimental answer for Feynman’s Sprinkler Problem by showing, across several sprinkler types, how the angular momentum of water flows drives sprinklers’ rotation,” said senior author Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University’s Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science.

The significance of the work extends well beyond an esoteric question about a hypothetical device, providing new insights into the physics of fluid dynamics. Feynman famously attempted to investigate the problem experimentally during the 1940s, though his apparatus reportedly failed dramatically before producing a definitive result. During his lifetime, Feynman discouraged naming the problem after himself, noting that it built upon ideas first explored by physicist Ernst Mach in the 1880s.

“Our findings provide a firmer understanding of how components respond to fluid flows—knowledge that can guide future engineering and technological advances for devices, such as turbines, that convert these flows into energy,” said co-author Brennan Sprinkle, an assistant professor at Colorado School of Mines.

Exploring Feynman

This isn’t the team’s first work on Feynman’s Sprinkler Problem, as it builds on what they reported in an earlier 2024 paper. Unlike Feynman himself, the researchers managed to make their reverse sprinkler rotate, leading to intriguing new physics discoveries. In that work, they discovered that a reverse sprinkler would operate much like a conventional one, though at about 50 times the slower rate.

While traditional sprinklers act like a rocket of water, the Feynman sprinkler is comparable to an inside-out rocket, shooting towards the junction of the arms at the device’s center. Inside that central chamber, the team discovered something interesting: the water jets do not collide head-on, which produces the sprinkler’s reverse rotation, in what the researchers dubbed the momentum flux theory.

That 2024 study was limited to traditional sprinklers with S-shaped arms, leaving the researchers to ponder how alternate shapes would impact the water flow. After fabricating their own series of sprinkler designs, the researchers tested water flow in both forward and reverse directions, measuring torque, flow rate, and rotational motion.

Testing Theories

One of the theories they tested was Ernest Mach’s 1883 theory that the fluid and sprinkler would swirl in opposite directions, but they found it did not align with the reverse rotations and torques observed in their experiments. They also tested a theory originally attributed to Feynman and later refined by others, which suggested that water flow at the outer edges of the sprinkler arms drove rotation; however, the team’s observations showed this is not the case.

Their observations supported the team’s existing momentum flux theory in both the forward and reverse directions, across all sprinkler shapes. According to their work, the shape of the sprinkler arms controls the flow of the water jet.

“By showing that momentum flux is the answer to Feynman’s Sprinkler Problem,” Ristroph concluded, “our findings address a long-standing open problem in flow physics and provide useful knowledge about how these devices work and their effectiveness.

The paper, “Geometry Controls Momentum Flux in the Sprinkler Problem,” appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on July 13, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

In Israel’s Qafzeh cave, archaeologists have discovered an intriguing set of ancient human remains that reveal a story of illness, violence, death, and survival in the remote past.

The international team of archaeologists from Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) and Tel Aviv University revealed their analysis of ancient human fossil remains, known as Qafzeh 25, in a recent paper published in Scientific Reports. 

The findings provide rare evidence of interpersonal violence, care for the injured, and early funerary practices in a human population that lived between 92,000 and 145,000 years ago.

Analyzing Ancient Human Remains

The researchers used a range of techniques to examine one particularly intriguing skull, including high-resolution micro-computed tomography (microCT) alongside macroscopic and microscopic analyses. Their investigation revealed a linear lesion across the mandible and lower premolars, with characteristics consistent with trauma inflicted by a sharp object.

Despite the severity of the injury, the researchers concluded that the individual survived the ordeal based on evidence of bone remodeling. The extent of healing suggests the person lived for a considerable period after suffering the wound.

Although the available evidence does not allow archaeologists to determine exactly how the injury occurred, they consider interpersonal violence the most likely explanation. The discovery is particularly significant because evidence of sharp-force trauma in Middle Paleolithic human remains is exceedingly rare.

Never-Before-Seen Conditions

Beyond the apparent head injury, the Qafzeh 25 skull yielded another remarkable discovery. Detailed examination of the teeth revealed dental conditions that had not previously been documented in humans of this antiquity.

The microCT scan revealed a hidden carious lesion in a lower premolar, along with enamel defects. These sorts of tooth decay issues are uncommon in early homo sapiens, as they are largely caused by bacteria that thrive on sugars. Before the advent of agriculture and later processed carbohydrates and refined sugars, such tooth decay was rare due to diets high in meats, nuts, and fibrous vegetables, which helped clean the teeth.

Ancient Human Funerary Practices

Looking beyond the skull, the researchers also examined the broader funerary context of the skeleton in an effort to reconstruct the burial practices of these ancient humans.

A broader analysis of the entire skeleton suggests it was deliberately buried, as it lacks evidence of carnivore predation or damage consistent with exposure to the elements. According to the researchers, this makes Qafzeh Cave one of the most important sites in the world for studying Homo sapiens’ earliest internment practices and the relationship not just between the living and the dead, but also between the living and the dying.

“These findings provide new evidence in the ongoing debate about the origins of complex behaviours such as interpersonal violence, the care of injured or ill individuals, and funerary practices—fundamental aspects for understanding the social and cultural evolution of our species,” said lead author Ana Pantoja Pérez, a member of the DEATHREVOL research group.

The find represents one of the earliest known well-preserved human populations outside of Africa at this time, residing in the Levant at least 90,000 years ago. With evidence of a healed traumatic injury, unusual dental disease, and intentional burial, the Qafzeh 25 skeleton offers a rare glimpse into the lives—and deaths—of some of our earliest ancestors.

The paper, “A Taphonomic Reassessment of Qafzeh 25 and Its Implications for Violence, Health and Funerary Practices,” appeared in Scientific Reports on June 30, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is celebrating four years of unexpectedly strong performance by providing a deep new view into one of the universe’s most familiar galaxies: Centaurus A.

Typically, Centaurus A’s thick dust obscures astronomers’ attempts to peer into it, yet the JWST’s near- and mid-infrared sensitivity allows scientists to see more of the galaxy than ever before. 

In new images released by NASA to celebrate JWST’s four years of impressive discoveries, the most powerful telescope ever constructed reveals the dense collection of stars that make up the ever-changing Centaurus A galaxy.

Inside Centaurus A

Due to two crucial factors, Centaurus A is an extremely interesting galaxy for astronomers. It is highly active, offering an important opportunity to monitor galaxy and black hole growth while being relatively close by, at just 11 million light-years away—a highly unusual combination.

The history of imaging Centaurus A is marked by questions, which JWST has now begun to answer. Webb’s predecessor, Hubble, could only view visible light in its examinations, leaving the galaxy’s central regions obscured by dust. Additionally, the Spitzer Space Telescope lacked sufficient resolution to resolve individual stars in infrared, although the data it collected provided new discoveries of massive dust structures.

Powerful events are on display in Centaurus A, the aftermath of a collision with another galaxy and a supermassive black hole’s active feeding. As the black hole releases powerful jets and gushes energy, it shapes the surrounding galaxy, which still retains an unusual shape left by its two-billion-year-old merger.

“No single telescope tells the whole story,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, division director, Astrophysics, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Discoveries build over time, and new observatories expand on the foundations laid by earlier missions. Webb represents the most powerful step forward yet, opening a window into wavelengths and details never before accessible. This allows astronomers to examine structures and processes that other telescopes could not see.”

JWST Reveals Amazing Structures

Thanks to JWST’s mid-infrared capabilities, astronomers captured detailed images of Centaurus A’s dust structures and were surprised and confused by the glowing shapes revealed. One unusual feature is a band cutting across the galactic center, shaped like a warped parallelogram, with wispy tendrils stretching out of it.

Another feature, shaped like the letter “S,” also confounds astronomers, leaving many questions about the influence of both the central black hole and the galactic merger on its shape and evolution. 

A large portion of the red glowing dots in the image above represent dusty areas, either dust-rich stars or stellar nurseries, both important sources of dust for star formation, and therefore, the continuance of the galaxy.

Single Stars and JWST

The JWST’s incredible resolution is allowing astronomers to study the galaxy star by star for the first time. Combining images from the MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) revealed tightly packed individual stars.

This view of individual stars is essential for what some astronomers call “galactic archaeology,” by providing important clues that help scientists reconstruct the galaxy’s formation and evolution. This galactic timeline is made up of many important pieces revealed by individual stars, such as when the oldest stars formed, when star formation slowed, when the merger reignited a powerful burst of star formation, and how that collision stirred the galaxy’s gases, further accelerating star formation.

Capturing these details requires spectroscopy, a technique where light is broken down to reveal detailed information about distant stars. Also using this technique, researchers can gain important information about the central black hole, identifying that it can both compress gas to accelerate star formation and push gas away to limit it.

On its fourth anniversary, the unprecedented details now revealed about one of our most interesting galactic neighbors continue to underscore the JWST’s incredible promise as NASA’s premier space observatory.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

The strange grin of the Happy-Face spider has been spotted far from the Hawaiian Islands, its only previously known home, much to scientists’ surprise.

In a recent paper published in Evolutionary Systematics, researchers from the Forest Research Institute and the Regional Museum of Natural History have found a spider bearing the unmistakable grin in Uttarakhand, India’s Montane mountains.

The researchers call it the Himalayan Happy-Face spider, Theridion himalayan, named for the unexpected combination of its highly recognizable markings and strange new location.

Finding the Happy-Face Spider

As with many scientific discoveries, the Himalayan Happy-Face Spider was discovered entirely by accident; the researchers, Ashirwad Tripathy and Devi Priyadarshini, were initially focused on the region’s ants.

“So, one fine day, when he shared this image from the underside of a Daphniphyllum leaf, I froze in shock because I had seen the Hawaiian spider during my master’s program itself, and I knew instantly we had a jackpot because of its striking resemblance,” said Priyadarshini, a researcher with the Regional Museum of Natural History in Bhubaneswar, and the co-author of a new study deatiling the discovery.

“I asked him to send all morphs that he found, and that led to the discovery in the next few months, from October 2023 onwards.”

According to Priyadarshini, she has always been interested in high-altitude spiders because the significant differences in landscape and vegetation in these regions compared with low-altitude plains offer “a gateway to look at other polymorphic species from this region.”

Himalayan Spider Species

According to Tripathy, this discovery may only be the beginning for the documentation of Himalayan Happy-Face spiders, as more variations may be identified in future surveys. 

“The name Himalayana was decided as the species name because we both wanted to pay our respects to the mighty Himalaya mountain ranges, which have been standing tall not just guarding our country but also holding a plethora of biodiversity within them, said co-author Ashirwad Tripathy, of the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun. “Since this spider was the first polymorphic from this region, we decided to make it an ode to the amazing mountain ranges.”

So far, the species has been found in three locations around Uttarakhand, including Makku, Tala, and Mandal, yielding 32 distinct color variations. In their investigation, the researchers conducted a DNA analysis of the new species, discovering that it differed by approximately 8.5% from the previously known Hawaiian Happy-Face spider. This indicates that the Himalayan version evolved independently.

Mysterious Markings

While the markings are fascinating, perhaps partially due to a certain amount of pareidolia in humans, the researchers are uncertain exactly why the spiders evolved to feature them. Notably, other creatures in the region bear similar colorful body markings.

“The reason behind the expression of polymorphism is also very complex and unique,” Priyadarshini explained. “These patterns definitely help them survive better in the wild, which is understood prima facie, but why do they resort to such patterns on their back, and what functional role in their life cycle does it exactly serve is yet to be deciphered. This is definitely indicative of a deeper genetic mystery.”

One strange connection between the Hawaiian and Himalayan varieties was their shared propensity to cling to ginger plants. This is especially notable because ginger is not native to Hawaii, suggesting an evolutionary connection between the species.

“How did the spiders choose an invasive species and ginger exactly?” Priyadarshini asks, noting this adds an unusual layer to the mystery, especially “if T. himalayana is an elder cousin of T. grallator, although discovered 125 years later!”

“Although this sounds like a tall claim now, it will be our further scope of work to establish any missing links,” Priyadarshini adds.

The paper, “On the Discovery of a New Polymorphic Happy-Face Spider (Araneae, Theridiidae) from the Western Himalayas, India, with Notes on its Natural History,” appeared in Evolutionary Systematics on April 24, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

An international team of archaeologists reports the discovery of a previously unknown Maya city, Minanbé, whose name roughly translates from Yucatecan Mayan as “There is no path.”

Working under the Archaeology Council of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), archaeologists from Slovenia and Mexico, led by Ivan Šprajc, discovered the lost settlement miles deep in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Campeche, Mexico. 

Hidden beneath more than a millennium of forest growth, the ancient Maya site required a challenging journey by ATV, followed by several miles on foot before the team could reach the ancient ruins.

Maya Civilization

For three decades, Ivan Šprajc of the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences has investigated the Central Mayan Lowlands. During the Maya civilization’s Late Classical period, the region was home to an estimated nine to eleven million people.

The discovery of Minanbé came west of Chactún, another Maya site that Šprajc’s team uncovered 13 years ago. Researchers first identified the approximately 15-hectare settlement using LiDAR to peer through the dense jungle canopy before carving a five-kilometer path to the ruins with machetes. Ironically, the difficult journey to reach Minanbé ultimately proved to be one of the site’s greatest assets.

“Compared to other places where we made surface routes, here access was much more difficult; however, in the last three years, it is the first one we found intact, and there was no looting. It was a discovery, a great surprise,” Šprajc said. “That’s why we chose the name of Minanbé, which comes from the Yucatecan Mayan (mina’an, ‘there is no’, and bej, ‘path’). Thus, we follow the tradition in Mayan archeology of naming some sites according to some characteristic of the place or in reference to the circumstances of the discovery.”

Urban Ruins

Upon arriving at Minanbé, the archaeologists uncovered plazas surrounded by ceremonial and palatial structures, along with terraces and hydraulic infrastructure. Among the site’s most impressive features was a 13-meter-high pyramid with a smooth façade, a steep staircase, and finely crafted molding. One grisly stela depicts a decapitation, while others preserve intricate iconography and hieroglyphic inscriptions. The team also identified a row of monuments lining a road that connected the city’s central and northeastern sectors.

The researchers took thousands of photographs, which were then referenced in the construction of 3D models of stelae and altars. Despite erosion softening the limestone details, epigraphist Octavio Esparza Olguín identified several important elements using editing software, including a date of 5 jaw, corresponding to 848 AD, on the decapitation stele.

“This is an important key because we can think that the entire set of monuments or some were erected for that moment of the Classic Terminal, close to the abandonment of the sites of the region, which happened in the 10th century AD,” Olguín explained.

Maya Records

Among the round and rectangular altars discovered at the site, several show evidence of having been intentionally altered over time. Monument 6 features an unusual split design, with the figure of a ruler carved on its front face wearing a feathered headdress, necklaces, wristbands, and a pectoral adorned with trilobed elements, while its sides are covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions.

Within those inscriptions, researchers identified a Long Count date they believe corresponds to the late seventh century, suggesting Minanbé may rank among the oldest known Maya settlements in the region.

Taken together, the discoveries provide important new insights into the history of the region. According to Šprajc, it likely fits into the regional pattern of an agricultural site that peaked in the Late Classical period, organized around a hierarchy linked to the production and distribution of surplus agricultural products. Later, a group from the north of the Yucatan may have arrived, changing the city’s dynamics. Despite the team’s success, there are currently no plans for additional fieldwork at the site.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Salty soil, one of the greatest threats to agriculture, may have a new remedy in the form of naturally occurring soil bacteria that allow plants to thrive under harsh conditions.

An international team led by Dr. Yanfen Zheng at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences presented their findings on increasing plant survivability in inhospitable environments in a recent paper published in Science Advances.

In their research, the international team demonstrated that maize, tomato, and rapeseed thrived in soil that would typically be unusable due to a previously unknown mechanism in these microbes, in a breakthrough for agriculture.

Salt and Agriculture

“The build-up of salt in farmland is a major and worsening problem – driven by climate change, irrigation and rising sea levels,” said co-author Prof Jonathan Todd, from the University of East Anglia’s School of Biological Sciences and the Quadram Institute on the Norwich Research Park. “Salt chokes plant growth, damages roots, and severely impacts entire harvests – putting global food supplies at risk.”

Agricultural scientists have long known that root microbiomes, the community of microbes living among a plant’s roots, are important for dealing with environmental stresses, yet they remained uncertain of the mechanics involved.

“We found that plants appear to recruit beneficial bacteria in salty soil conditions, which in turn trigger internal changes that strengthen their physical structure and resilience,” Todd continued. “If scientists can harness this natural process, it could mark the beginning of a new era in climate-resilient agriculture.”

Investigating Plant Root Microbiomes

The international team examined a variety of plant root microbiomes across different soil types and plant species, identifying pseudomonads, a type of naturally occurring soil bacterium, that are drawn to the roots of maize, tomato, and rapeseed in heavily salted environments. By noting the commonality of high salt content across a variety of crops, the researchers concluded that this was more than a mere coincidence and decided to analyze the genetic mechanisms behind the bacterium’s behavior.

“Compared to other microbes, pseudomonads carry specialised genes that help them tolerate high salt levels, including sodium transport systems and other stress resistance mechanisms,” Todd said.

Next, the researchers introduced various pseudomonad strains to soybean plants in laboratory and real-world soil experiments and observed that the bacteria colonized plant roots, resulting in increased growth in harsh, salty environments. Those soybean plants that received the bacteria demonstrated stronger root systems, more advanced development, and higher yields than those without.

“The most surprising thing was finding out how the bacteria helped plants cope,” Todd said. “For decades, it was thought that plants survive salinity by controlling sodium levels – essentially keeping harmful salt out. But we found no evidence that bacteria influenced sodium transport or ion balance.”

Lignin and Salt

“Instead of helping plants manage salt directly, the bacteria stimulated the plant to produce more of a substance called lignin,” Todd continued. “Roots of bacteria-treated plants showed a significant increase in lignin content, with some measurements rising by over 30 percent under salt stress.”

The tough, wood-like lignin acted as a shield against the salt, strengthening delicate tissues to endure a challenging environment. Unfortunately, in plants that couldn’t produce lignin, the pseudomonads produced no benefit. Building on the discovery, the researchers identified the genes in the plants involved in lignin synthesis and artificially overexpressed them to successfully confer salt resilience.

“We hope this discovery opens up new possibilities for agriculture,” Todd concluded. “With vast areas of farmland already affected by salinity and more under threat, microbial solutions could become an essential tool for maintaining crop yields and ensuring food security.”

The paper, “Pseudomonads Associated with Salt-Stressed Plants Facilitate Stress Adaptation of Soybean through Enhanced Lignin Biosynthesis,” appeared in Science Advances on June 24, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Homo floresiensis, a diminutive ancient hominin often compared to the hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings mythos, engaged in a sort of “second breakfast” according to new research.

Instead of eating twice in short succession like their fictional counterparts, a new paper published in Nature Microbiology suggests that these hobbits were second to the table, eating the scavenged remains of Komodo dragon kills. This new work challenges earlier suggestions that H. floresiensis was a sophisticated species capable of using fire and hunting large game.

Interpreting The Hobbits of Flores

H. floresiensis remains have been discovered co-located with proboscideans, the taxonomic group that includes elephants, stegodons, and similar trunked creatures. One such discovery occurred on the island of Flores, off the coast of Indonesia, at the Liang Bua site.

Among the H. floresiensis and Stegodon remains at the site, small stone tools littered the area, leading researchers to conclude that the hobbits were ancient hunters.

The isolated conditions of the small island produced one of the most dwarfed Stegodon breeds, typically standing just under four feet tall and weighing between 770 and 800 pounds. In comparison, the hobbits were only a bit over three feet tall and weighed around 66 pounds, with the two species together forming almost a miniature scale model of the big-game hunting that later hominins would engage in elsewhere in the world.

The Secret of Fire

Archaeologists identified Stegodon remains bearing char marks, which they interpreted as evidence that the small hominins had mastered fire and were cooking their food. This was an unexpected find, as H. floresiensis was a relatively small-brained species, while evidence of fire use has typically been identified only in larger-brained species such as modern humans and Neanderthals.

The suggestion that the tiny, small-brained creatures killed and cooked Stegodon and other elephant ancestors led scientists to believe the species was relatively advanced. Potentially supporting this contention were skull measurements, indicating that despite the relatively small brain size, there was an expansion of the brain’s frontal polar region, associated with high-level cognitive processing. Taken together, this evidence led researchers to suspect that the hobbits were far more sophisticated than they had previously been given credit for.

Reconsidering Hobbits

However, when Smithsonian researchers reexamined the Stegodon bones found on Flores, they came to a different conclusion. Only one other creature on the island was a large enough predator to take down a Stegodon: the Komodo dragon. The Smithsonian team set out to investigate who was really behind the Stegodon kills: tiny hobbits, or giant lizards.

First, they performed an experiment at Zoo Atlanta, feeding Komodo dragons and then measuring the tooth marks on the leftover bones. Based on these baseline measurements, the researchers discovered Komodo dragon tooth marks on the meatiest, and therefore, most desirable parts of the carcass for predators to consume. It was only on the less desirable portions of the Stegodon remains that the team found cut marks likely caused by the hobbits. 

This indicates that Komodo dragons were most likely the original predators who killed the Stegodon, quickly taking the prime portions, with H. floresiensis coming later, like a hyena, to scavenge the remains. 

Additionally, their reinvestigation of H. floresiensis’s use of fire also called into question prior assertions. Only one of 3155 Stegodon bone fragments showed any evidence of contact with fire. That one fragment was unearthed high in the strata and may have poked through the surface of the site when it was used as a hearth by later H. sapiens, explaining the one odd incidence of fire damage.

In their final conclusion, the authors write, “The evidence to date thus suggests that H. floresiensis did not engage in a behavioral repertoire as diverse or as flexible as in modern humans or Neanderthals, possibly due to an ancestry in which large game hunting and controlled use of fire did not evolve”

The paper, “Taphonomic analysis at Liang Bua Reveals the Behavioral and Technological Capabilities of Homo Floresiensis,” appeared in Science Advances on July 3, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Researchers have developed the first entirely artificial cell, made completely from non-living chemical components, which they say is even capable of replicating.

A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, College of Biological Sciences, has described their synthetic cell, which they call SpudCell, in a recent preprint. SpudCell marks the first time scientists have replicated elements of life, such as energy use, reproduction, growth, and development, in a synthetic biological organism.

The Secrets of Life

While many mysteries of life and death remain for science, the team’s achievement represents a significant breakthrough, moving a concept once relegated only to science fiction into science fact. The team is hopeful that new solutions to medical and engineering problems will also arise from their achievement.

“This is likely the most exciting project I’ve ever worked on,” said co-author Kate Adamala. “We’ve replicated in chemistry what only used to be possible in biology: the complete set of behaviors of a cell. It proves that the most fundamental functions of life, like growth and replication, do not need a mysterious magical spark.”

The artificial SpudCell performs some of the most complex activities of its biological counterparts, including selection, genome replication, genetically encoded division, resource acquisition via feeding, and growth. 

Like a Cell, Yet Different

Although the synthetic cell copies many biological functions, there are some differences. It lacks the internal scaffolding, called a cytoskeleton, which natural cells use to divide. Instead, SpudCell crowds proteins together on its membrane surface until enough mechanical stress builds up to cause the membrane to split. 

In addition to being slightly different from a biological cell, the team refined SpudCell throughout their research, at one point altering the cell’s genetics to increase fusion protein production. With this change, the cells grew faster and produced more offspring, outcompeting the original variant in five generations. In a demonstration of the system’s selection and competition, the genetically modified advantage further increased when the team changed conditions to make nutrients scarcer.

The cell’s genetic code is relatively simple. There are about three million kilobase pairs in the human genome, and likely around 113 pairs in a single cell. SpudCell contains a mere 90, encoded on seven DNA plasmids, instead of a single chromosome. This encoding solution offers benefits, allowing researchers to program cellular functions more easily by simply touching a single piece of the modular system. They say this will enable them to continue increasing SpudCell’s complexity.

Moving Forward on Synthetic Cells

“This work is just the beginning,” said Adamala, who, along with several partners, is founding a research and engineering institution called Biotic, which will focus on further advancements in synthetic cell research, keeping its findings open source.

“We are showing it’s possible to engineer the basic functions of the cell,” Adamala added. “To fully realize the promise of this technology – to make it robust and practical – we need combined international effort.”

“The role of Biotic is to focus engineering efforts and make them compatible with a shared chassis. SpudCell is that chassis, and with Biotic setting the protocols for collaboration, we are eager to start applying this technology to serious challenges.”

The next steps for Biotic will be to combine SpudCell’s seven DNA plasmids into a single genome and build more molecular machinery. One of the greatest challenges they are preparing to confront is standardization, as many labs use different standards. To achieve true growth in this sector, Biotic aims to develop modular standards that will apply across the entire field.

SpudCell could provide a revolutionary new basis for manufacturing, allowing cells to naturally develop properties that typically require difficult and expensive molecular transformations, and even open up possibilities beyond what those transformations can offer. This could enable major improvements in medicine by using amino acids that are never used in nature.

The paper, “A Chemically Defined Synthetic Cell Capable Of Growth And Replication,” is available in preprint form on bioRxiv.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

New experiments are bringing into focus the mechanism behind Hawking radiation, the strange phenomenon that demonstrates black holes are not strictly a one-way street. 

While theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking’s prediction of this faint radiation from black holes has yet to be detected from space, researchers have replicated it in laboratory models and have developed complex theories to explain the phenomenon.

In their recent paper in Nature, an international team of researchers from Germany’s Paderborn University, Mexico’s Cinestav, and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science has developed laboratory models that may point to a much simpler mechanism underlying these theoretical black hole emissions.

Hawking Radiation

Stephen Hawking first described Hawking radiation in a 1974 theoretical model, characterizing this as a type of blackbody radiation, meaning it is in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment and changes with the body’s temperature. His prior work had assumed that the pull of a black hole was so powerful that electromagnetic radiation could not escape it. But eventually he reconsidered the work of two Soviet scientists, Yakov Zeldovich and Alexei Starobinsky, who proposed in 1971 that black holes could create and emit particles.

A major consequence of this theoretical radiation is that if it were real, it would mean that black holes slowly evaporate as they lose electromagnetic radiation. Given enough time, if a black hole failed to feed, it would continue to shrink until it vanished entirely. 

Intriguingly, the rate at which this happens would be inversely proportional to the black hole’s mass, with smaller black holes emitting radiation at a faster rate. Therefore, micro black holes could disappear remarkably quickly compared to their larger siblings.

Modeling Black Hole Emissions

The international team’s work models the generation of Hawking radiation in a nonlinear optical environment, allowing them to identify a simple mechanism responsible for the emission and its impact on the system.

Earlier work described a significantly more complicated scenario, involving multiple quantum-mechanical processes interacting in a cascade to generate the Hawking radiation. The new solution utilized a fiber-optic model of a black hole’s event horizon, combined with precision experiments and rigorous modeling to reveal a much simpler mechanism by which radiation generates and feeds back.

“This simplifies the theoretical understanding and opens up new ways of calculating effects in such systems,” explained lead author Dr. Lorenzo M. Procopio, formerly of Weizmann but now of Paderborn University. “It might even shed light on how Hawking radiation arises in the context of gravity.”

Experimental Verification

The international researchers’ work goes beyond identifying the simplified mechanism; it also provides evidence that Hawking radiation interacts with the black hole system, rather than passively emitting from it into space.

Understanding this emission system is crucial to one of the great unanswered questions about black holes: do they lose mass over time or remain in permanent equilibrium? The enormous cosmic scale of a black hole and massive distances involved make such a precise study out of reach for current observational technology. 

However, this laboratory work provides a unique opportunity to study the effect of Hawking radiation on a measurable scale. Additionally, Hawking radiation experiments offer essential clues to the nature of elusive quantum gravity, in which physicists are still trying to determine how macroscopic gravity impacts the microscopic quantum world.

The paper, “Backreaction of Stimulated Hawking Radiation in an Optical Analogue,” appeared in Nature on July 1, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Researchers have discovered a potentially habitable exoplanet just 25 light-years from Earth—but is its precarious location on the cosmic shore too dangerous to make it a home for extraterrestrial life?

In a recent paper in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, revealed their discovery of GJ 3378b, an exoplanet that resides in the habitable zone, sometimes referred to as the “Goldilocks zone,” a distance from the host star ideal for liquid surface water.

The habitable zone is a key focus in the search for extraterrestrial life, as planets any closer would have their atmospheres and surface waters burned off, while those any further from their host star would be completely frozen.

Finding Another Earth

“This one’s exciting,” said lead author Paul Robertson, a UC Irvine assistant professor of astronomy and lead author of the new study. “It’s one of our closest cosmic neighbors. 25 light-years sounds like a long way, but the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, so in that respect it’s our next-door neighbor.”

Robertson led the team in the exoplanet discovery, using the Habitable-zone Planet Finder on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas, and the NEID Spectrometer on the WIYN Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

GJ 3378b is about twice the size of Earth, making it what astronomers call a “super-Earth” for its increased size. Additionally, this potentially habitable exoplanet likely receives a comparable amount of stellar radiation to our planet.

“This super-Earth gets about 90 percent of the radiation from its host star as Earth gets from its sun, so it’s right in the sweet spot,” said Robertson.

Exoplanet Atmosphere

While GJ 3378b resides within its star’s habitable zone, it does so only barely. This fringe area astronomers refer to as “the cosmic shoreline,” a distance just outside of which the stellar radiation would become so intense that its atmosphere would be ripped away, and any potential surface water along with it.

Straddling this shoreline, researchers are uncertain whether GJ 3378b has an atmosphere or is still a victim of excessive stellar radiation, as its larger size relative to Earth may make it more susceptible.

Our own solar system also offers an excellent example of this: the planet Mars, which researchers suspect once had an Earth-like atmosphere, and potentially even life. However, intense solar radiation bombardment destroyed that atmosphere, taking the surface water with it, leaving a desolate wasteland.

“If you scale the Earth down to the size of an apple, its atmosphere would be about as thick as the skin of the apple,” said Robertson. “That’s just enough to maintain the kinds of surface pressures where you can have liquid water. It’s enough that there’ll be breathable air, and it provides maybe a little bit of protection from the harsh radiation environment of space.”

Extraterrestrial Life on Exoplanets

Although GJ 3377b is relatively close to Earth on a cosmic scale, current equipment cannot determine whether the planet harbors an atmosphere. To do so, advanced future observation platforms will be required, and just such work is on the horizon.

“If a planet in the habitable zone has a proper atmosphere, we can justify further research looking for biosignatures, liquid water, or other signs of life that require both an atmosphere and the right amount of heating from the host star,” said co-author Gogod James, a UC Irvine student in Robertson’s group who worked to characterize the size of GJ 3378b.

NASA plans to take a closer look at these potentially habitable worlds in about two decades with its upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Launching in the 2020s, HWO will be a large infrared/optical/ultraviolet space telescope designed to confirm whether exoplanets have atmospheres, and then seek biosignatures within those atmospheres, which could indicate the presence of extraterrestrial life.

The paper, “A Revised Mass and Period for the Habitable Zone Super-Earth GJ 3378 b: A Planet Straddling the Cosmic Shoreline,” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal on June 30, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Creatine may be beneficial as more than just a muscle-building supplement, as new research is investigating whether the popular compound could hold promise as a treatment for depression.

The University of Ottawa’s Bassam Jeryous Fares led the new studies, described in a recent paper in Brain Research, examining how creatine affects brain chemistry, particularly involving depression.

As one of the most popular workout supplements today, creatine has been well studied for its effects on muscle growth. However, the new findings suggest that its cognitive impact may have remained underappreciated.

Hidden in the Data

For their research, the University of Ottawa team did not conduct new clinical trials. Instead, they reexamined existing data from a new perspective. The researchers identified five randomized controlled studies, published across six papers, in which neither participants nor physicians knew who received creatine or a placebo.

Together, the studies enrolled nearly 240 participants, evenly divided between the placebo and creatine groups. While most participants were women, the studies included individuals from South Korea, the United States, Brazil, India, and Israel.

The studies were focused on the mental impacts of creatine, with four looking at major depressive disorder and one at bipolar individuals enduring a major depressive episode, yet they varied widely in design. Due to these differences, the University of Ottawa researchers opted to summarize the trials separately rather than create a single set of statistics across them.

Uneven Depression Results

The results between the studies did not tell a single, cohesive story. In two of the studies, researchers reported significant positive results on major depressive disorder by combining five grams of creatine with the antidepressant escitalopram daily. Similarly, another trial combining creatine with cognitive behavioral therapy showed a greater reduction in symptoms than the placebo group.

However, the remaining studies found no measurable benefit. One focused on individuals who had previously failed to respond to depression medications and likewise found that creatine did not improve their symptoms. Similarly, a study involving adolescent girls with major depressive disorder and another involving women with bipolar disorder reported no improvement. In the bipolar group, creatine not only failed to show benefits but also induced hypomania or mania in two participants.

Brain Power and Depression

The key to the discussion is a molecule called adenosine triphosphate, which carries energy to fuel biological processes. Creatine helps replenish that molecule in muscles, and since the brain uses more energy by volume than any other part of the body, it stands to reason that creatine would have a major impact on the brain.

Existing research into mood disorders has commonly identified changes in the brain’s creatine metabolism, leading to the suggestion that reduced energy production in the brain causes depression. Additionally, some speculate that creatine activates the same pathways targeted by antidepressants, but all links between mood and creatine remain correlational. 

“The signal is interesting, but it is not a verdict,” said lead author Bassam Jeryous Fares, a student in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. “Two trials pointed one way, and three pointed another. That is not the kind of evidence on which you change clinical practice. It is the kind that tells you the question is worth further exploration.”

According to the researchers, their findings suggest creatine may represent a promising avenue for future depression research. However, they emphasize that these studies are only an early step, and much more work is needed to determine whether the supplement can play a meaningful role in treating mood disorders.

The paper, “Creatine as a Treatment for Depression,” appeared in Brain Medicine on June 30, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations have revealed that the fate of planets after the death of their host star may be surprisingly warm, according to new research from the University of St Andrews.

The JWST observations offer a possible glimpse into what our solar system will be like billions of years from now, particularly for gas giants like Jupiter. In a recent paper published in Nature, the St Andrew researchers describe JWST observations of WD 1856 b, a Jupiter-sized exoplanet much warmer than would be expected for orbiting a dead white dwarf star.

Webb Observes WD 1856 b

A collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, the JWST has provided an unprecedented view of the distant edges of the universe, revealing many unexpected finds. Among these surprises was WD 1856 b, whose mass, temperature, and atmosphere readings reveal a surprisingly intact planet after the death of its star.

Our own Sun is projected to exhaust its supply of hydrogen in roughly five billion years, after which it will expand into a red giant star about 100 times larger than it is today, before shedding mass in its final transformation into a white dwarf star.

In the distant future, the Sun’s transformations will likely someday obliterate Mercury, Venus, and even Earth, yet scientists have remained uncertain about how more distant planets will fare. Only by observing real-world examples of planets orbiting dead stars can scientists gather more data on how these scenarios play out for the remaining planets, as with JWST’s observations of WD 1856 b.

A Strange System

Discovered in 2020 by the TESS survey and the Spitzer space telescope, WD 1856 b orbits the white dwarf star WD 1856+534 at a distance of around 80 light-years from Earth.

“The planet is quite the oddball. It’s about the size of Jupiter, but the white dwarf it orbits is the size of Earth, so the planet is seven times larger than its star,” said lead author Dr. Ryan MacDonald from the University of St Andrews.

Perhaps the most confounding element of this system is how close the exoplanet is to its host star. At a distance of 50 times closer than the Earth is to the Sun, the planet is at a distance at which the star’s red giant phase should have destroyed it. How the planet managed to escape the destruction while ultimately ending up so close to its star intrigued the St. Andrews team.

James Webb Space Telescope Data

As WD 1856 b performed a grazing transit, where just its top edge passed in front of the host star, JWST observations allowed the researchers to crucially measure mass and temperature data, allowing them to estimate its mass at between four and eleven times that of Jupiter.

“We’re used to looking back in time when we use telescopes, but this is the first time we have been able to look forward to what might happen to the outer planets around the remnant of a Sun-like star,” MacDonald said, adding that “it’s like using a time machine to peer into the distant future of our Solar System.”

Infrared light emitted by the planet’s own heat showed a surprising temperature of 126°C, which is 240°C hotter than it would be from the white dwarf’s heat alone.

JWST Tells The Future

As the team worked on the problem, the temperature mystery proved to be the answer to the distance issue.

“The big question is how WD 1856 b ended up where it is today, and there are two theories. One is that the planet was swallowed by the host star as it was dying, and managed to survive on the inside,” said Dr. Christopher O’Connor of Northwestern University. “The other is that the migration took place due to the gravitational effect of other objects in the system. The white dwarf is part of a triple star system, and the outer companion stars could have influenced WD 1856 b’s orbit.”

Since no present source of energy should be capable of generating this much heat on the exoplanet, the researchers suggest that it represents heat left over from being engulfed by the red giant or possibly through an inward migration. Cooling models the team analyzed indicated that the planet likely first captured heat about 3 to 3.5 billion years ago, then cooled to its present temperature and migrated closer to its host star.

“This is just the beginning of our exploration of planets orbiting dead stars with Webb, and the search for further planets orbiting white dwarfs is ongoing,” Dr. MacDonald concluded. “Our results show that stellar death is not the end – some planets experience a vibrant and lively future after the death of their star.”

The paper, “Aerosol and Hydrocarbons in the Atmosphere of a White Dwarf Planet,” appeared in Nature on July 1, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

An exoplanet is exerting a magnetic influence on its host star in a manner opposite to what astronomers normally observe, according to researchers at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).

In a recent paper published in Science, IAA-CSIC researchers revealed how the exoplanet GJ 436 b is affecting its host star’s behavior in a never-before-seen way. In their work, the team developed a novel method to estimate an exoplanet‘s magnetic field strength, an important factor in determining habitability.

“Until recently it was thought that it was mainly the star that influenced the planet,” said Rafael Luque, an IAA-CSIC researcher and one of the new study’s co-authors.

Luque adds that his team’s results now offer “the clearest evidence to date of something that had already been suspected: that the opposite can also happen and that a nearby planet can alter the environment of its star.”

Life and Magnetic Fields

While the most obvious ingredients for a habitable planet are water and a breathable atmosphere, other elements are less apparent to us based on our human experience. Our planet’s invisible magnetic field protects us from the solar wind and holds the atmosphere together.

While Earth’s magnetic field guided the evolution of its atmosphere, Mars provides an example of what the loss of a magnetic field can do to an otherwise potentially habitable planet. When the Martian magnetic field disappeared four billion years ago as the planet’s core rapidly cooled, the atmosphere dissipated, followed by the loss of surface water.

As shown by the fates of two cosmic neighbors like Earth and Mars, a stable magnetic field is a key element of habitability.

Observing Exoplanet Magnetic Fields

Detecting magnetic fields on distant exoplanets has proven more challenging for astronomers than other observations, such as atmospheric composition. In their new paper, the IAA-CSIC team provides the first conclusive evidence of an exoplanet’s magnetic field, observed through its impact on the host star.

“In particular, we have observed that GJ 436 b, an exoplanet similar to Neptune that orbits very close to its star, causes regular changes in the brightness and energy emitted by the star at certain wavelengths,” explained lead author Daniel Revilla, an IAA-CSIC researcher who led the study as part of his doctoral thesis.

GJ 436 b provided the team with measurable signals that allowed them to infer that the exoplanet had a magnetic field and estimate its strength. The IAA-CSIC team analyzed sixteen years of spectroscopic observations of the GJ-436 system for their research, collected by the CARMENES instrument at the Calar Alto Observatory.

“Despite its smaller size, GJ 436 b would have a magnetic field between 2.33 and 27 times more intense than that of Jupiter,” said co-author Pedro J. Beloved, a researcher at the IAA-CSIC.

A Strange Interaction

In the paper, the researchers demonstrate how, in a very close orbit, a planet can flip the normal planet-star relationship, with the planet controlling the influence of gravity, radiation, and magnetic fields between the two. As the exoplanet interacts with its host star, it injects energy into the star’s chromosphere to produce a phenomenon like a stellar aurora.

This strange interaction has only been measured periodically, occurring in eight-year cycles, with observations in 2008, 2016, and 2024. Intriguingly, these years correlate to phases of the host star’s magnetic cycle, which the researchers believe affects the intensity.

“Until now, measuring the magnetic field of an exoplanet was extremely difficult,” Devilla concluded. “This property is key to knowing if a planet can protect its atmosphere and, ultimately, if it could harbor life.”

The paper, “Constraining an Exoplanet’s Magnetic Field Using Star-Planet Interactions,” appeared in Science on June 25, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Yellowstone and other volcanic supereruptions may work completely differently than previously assumed, drawing magma from a wide, shallow pool near the surface rather than from a deep plume, according to an international team of researchers.

The new work on volcanic supereruptions was revealed in a recent paper published in Science, offering new insight into the processes behind these potentially devastating events. This knowledge could be essential to future preparedness operations, allowing geologists to refine supervolcano hazard assessments and plan for eruption risk.

Supereruptions

Over 1,000 cubic kilometers of molten magma, solid rock, and drifting ash are ejected during a volcanic supereruption. The initial detonation of these events poses a sudden threat to the environment and local human activity, but the long-term effects of ash lingering in the air can alter the climate in devastating ways across an even larger area and for a longer duration than the initial physical damage caused by rocks and magma.

Researchers at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) collaborated with researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to develop a new three-dimensional model of the geodynamics of western North America. Their work models the Earth’s rigid outer shell, the lithosphere, and the convecting mantle beneath it, providing researchers with a new glimpse into how magma is generated beneath these supervolcanoes.

Supervolcanoes

The traditional hypothesis explaining supervolcanoes posited that long-standing liquid magma pockets in the Earth’s crust lie beneath them, accumulating magma until the pressure builds to the point that it breaks through the chamber, causing an eruption, collapse, or crustal failure.

Yet modern research has disputed that claim, arguing that the evidence indicates wide areas of partially molten rock, called magma mush systems, dot the lithosphere rather than distinct liquid chambers. Beneath the lithosphere is the asthenosphere, a layer of ductile rock that flows extremely slowly, which current research suggests feeds supervolcanoes through a mysterious mechanism of partial melting.

Magma moving toward the surface from the asthenosphere interacts with solid rock to create a mushy magma that is orders of magnitude more viscous than liquid magma and more diffusely distributed than the chambers of liquid magma described in the older hypothesis.

North America’s Supervolcanoes

Over the last 2.1 million years, North America’s Yellowstone caldera has produced two of these supereruptions, offering geologists a natural laboratory for studying these catastrophic events. Investigations of the area have uncovered an enormous magma-mush system, with liquid bodies existing only briefly, prior to eruptions. However, the geodynamic processes responsible for the system remained obscured prior to the new model.

The model revealed that the subduction of the Farallon Plate beneath central and eastern North America generates a mantle wind that transports asthenospheric material eastward toward Yellowstone. As buoyant material is pulled down beneath the lithosphere on its slow journey, decompression melting occurs, rather than the earlier suggestion that liquid magma rises from a deep mantle plume. This flow to the east combines with the westward movement of the buoyant lithosphere west of Yellowstone to create a tear in the continental lithosphere through which magma can ascend. 

According to the researchers, their model’s projections are consistent with independent geophysical and geochemical observations, demonstrating the veracity of its physical mechanism for supervolcanoes, rooted in enormous magma-mush systems. They say this mechanism should hold for supervolcanoes worldwide, offering crucial new insights that can be used in disaster preparedness.

The paper, “Tectonic Origin of Yellowstone’s Translithospheric Magma Plumbing System,” appeared in Science on April 9, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Hidden in the gravitational waves generated by the largest black hole collision ever detected, clues retrieved by Australian National University (ANU) researchers have helped them observe how black holes drag spacetime itself along with their spin.

As two black holes collide, they merge in a massive cosmic impact, forming a larger black hole and creating ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. In the largest black hole merger observed, GW250114, the ANU team discovered a hidden direct wave for the first time, a feature expected by general relativity and revealed in a recent paper published in Nature.

Black Holes and Gravitational Waves

Some of the most intriguing objects in the universe, black holes have enormous power and effect on their surroundings, which scientists are still working to better understand. The gravitational waves produced by their collisions compress space as they travel, and highly sophisticated—and very precise—detectors are required to observe these waves, such as the United States’ Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Since not even light can escape a black hole’s event horizon, gravitational waves’ ability to carry information about what lies just beyond the rim’s edge provides an important means of gaining perspective into one of a black hole’s most mysterious regions.

The most extreme black hole merger ever recorded, GW250114, came from a black hole perfectly positioned for Earth observers, allowing LIGO to capture faint signatures in the data. The team decoded the event’s direct wave, previously hidden in the data, revealing the black hole’s drag on spacetime.

Black Hole Frame Dragging

In his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein described black holes as producing a “frame dragging” effect in which they pull nearby spacetime with them as they rotate, like water circling a drain. Also, according to general relativity, the region where this frame-dragging occurs, just past the event horizon’s edge, should produce gravitational radiation that creates a direct wave, imprinting information about the cosmic whirlpool surrounding the black hole.

Event horizons have been essential to theoretical physics models for decades, but very little observational data on them has been collected due to the difficulty of observing light that close to a black hole. Although not a physical object and instead merely a boundary in spacetime, general relativity posits that the event horizon’s properties, such as gravitational strength and rotational speed, should be measurable. Therefore, having access to a data source so close to the black hole’s edge, as with a direct wave, is extremely valuable to understanding our universe.

Due to the extreme nature of the event and our prime viewing location on Earth, the extremely powerful gravitational wave produced by GW250114 was the perfect opportunity to hunt for a direct wave. Despite longstanding predictions of direct waves based on general relativity, this is the first time that one has ever been detected, providing new insight into how fast the black hole is spinning and the gravitational power of the event horizon.

Direct Wave Observation

The researchers employed a new technique to isolate the subtle direct wave in the data from the rest of the event. This first success proves the case for direct waves and how to detect them, opening an entirely new avenue for investigating black holes. By finally detecting these waves, the team provides future researchers with an essential technique for designing new tests of General Relativity, as direct waves, horizon rotations, and surface gravity should all be linked.

Scientists currently grapple with the apparent incompatibility between general relativity, which describes our universe at the macro scale, and quantum physics, which operates at the smallest scales of matter and energy.

Some of our most essential technologies, such as GPS, lasers, quantum computers, and semiconductors, are designed according to these theories and operate perfectly despite the seeming contradiction of how these two perspectives of our universe describe physical reality.

The difficulty of reconciling these ideas is one reason scientists are interested in distant black holes. The extreme conditions of spacetime at the edge of an event horizon may offer the best clues for finally reconciling these existing theories, or for upending them altogether in favor of something that more accurately describes the physical universe at all scales.

The paper, “GW250114 Reveals Signatures of Post-Merger Black-Hole Horizon,” appeared in Nature on June 24, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

New climate change research conducted at CERN offers rare, hopeful news about the planet’s resilience to global warming, finding that phytoplankton are producing far more heat-mitigating aerosols than previously understood.

In a paper recently published in Nature, the researchers reveal an unexpected picture of how clouds and aerosols have changed since the beginning of widespread fossil fuel use, offering a brighter outlook than may have been expected. The new study identifies our planet’s resilience to anthropogenic climate change, suggesting that Mother Nature may be tougher than we think.

Cloud Formation and Climate Change

Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere, are the cores around which clouds form. When the amount of aerosol particles in the atmosphere increases, they can produce a cooling effect, both by directly reflecting sunlight before it reaches the Earth’s surface and by acting as CCNs. When the number of particles available in the atmosphere for cloud formation increases, more small clouds form, which are also brighter and provide greater coverage.

Ironically, the particles formed by burning fossil fuels act in this way, mitigating the heating effect of the greenhouse gases released by the same processes, and producing a substantial offset in global warming.

Nucleation, the spontaneous condensation of trace vapors, produces more than half of the CCN in Earth’s atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels releases sulfur dioxide, which in turn creates sulfuric acid, the most important of these nucleating vapors.

Unexpected Consequences

As emission controls have reduced atmospheric sulfur dioxide, this has created a catch-22, according to the CERN researchers. These particles are detrimental to human health, increasing the risk of lung problems and even heart disease. However, by reducing their atmospheric concentrations, these interventions are projected to increase global warming as aerosol concentrations trend back toward pre-industrial levels.

“Most climate models currently consider only sulphuric acid-driven nucleation,” explained co-author Jasper Kirkby, of the CLOUD Collaboration. “However, it is vital to understand and properly account for biogenic sources to reliably predict the Earth’s future climate and air quality. Observations over the Southern Ocean and in the upper troposphere over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans indicate that a major source of marine aerosol particles is unaccounted for by current models.”

The CLOUD survey may finally have landed on the identity of this mysterious source. About 20% of atmospheric sulfur comes from marine phytoplankton emitting dimethyl sulfide. As that dimethyl sulfide oxidizes in the atmosphere, it then produces sulfuric acid (SA) and methanesulphonic acid (MSA). While scientists have long understood SA’s role in new particle formation, MSA was poorly understood.

Climate Change Resistance

Through a series of experiments and computer modeling, the CLOUD collaboration discovered that at temperatures below -10 °C, MSA drives particle nucleation in the presence of ammonia just as well as SA, and at temperatures below +10 °C, it drives particle growth, even with minimal ammonia.

“Since MSA and SA generally coexist at similar concentrations in cool marine regions, our findings indicate that particle nucleation rates might be accelerated up to tenfold and growth rates up to twofold compared with sulphuric acid and ammonia alone,” Kirkby said. “Our model simulations indicate that MSA-driven new particle formation may account for the major missing source of marine aerosol particles in current models.”

This work provided important new knowledge to supplement CLOUD’s earlier work identifying large amounts of isoprene-driven new particle formation above tropical rainforests. Between identifying that activity over land and MSA’s newly understood marine CCN formation, CLOUD’s work suggests that the biosphere may be more resilient than previously understood, capable of creating those CCN without anthropogenic emissions to compensate for continuing global warming.

“The CLOUD Collaboration has made an important advance in our understanding of climate”, commented Gautier Hamel de Monchenault, CERN Director for Research and Computing, who was not an author on the study. “It is crucial to deepen our understanding of aerosols: in this case, increased biogenic CCN will affect estimates of the Earth’s climate sensitivity as well as projections of climate warming.”

The paper, “Role of Methanesulfonic Acid in Atmospheric Particle Nucleation and Growth,” appeared in Nature on June 24, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

Poisson spots, a light phenomenon first discovered two centuries ago, have been employed by researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), to produce optical skyrmions, a stable light pattern, with major implications for cutting-edge data storage research.

Published in the journal Optica, the NTU researchers describe producing small, swirling optical skyrmions using only a laser focused on a small disk, thereby eliminating the need for complex, expensive equipment typically required to achieve the same effect.

The NTU team’s breakthrough allows optical scientists to generate, control, and study this optical light phenomenon much more easily than before.

Data in Light

In the search for optimal data storage and retrieval methods, scientists have been considering skyrmions as a potential next-generation solution for communication and computing applications. Earlier skyrmion work required metamaterials engineered with complex microstructures, although at great expense.

“What is remarkable is that optical skyrmions can now be generated using a simple effect where light bends around an object, without relying on expensive, complex man-made metamaterials or highly specialised techniques,” explained co-author Shen Yijie, of NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

“This could make optical skyrmions much more accessible to researchers,” Shen continued. “By lowering the technical barrier to creating and studying them, the method opens up new possibilities for scientists to study how they could be used in future optical, materials, and computing research.”

The Nature of Light

Scientists have been interested in the Poisson spot since the early 19th century, as part of the debate over whether light travels as waves or particles. When a coherent light source—in this case, a laser—strikes a circular object, a bright point appears at the center of its shadow. That bright point is what physicists refer to as the Poisson spot.

This is created by light diffraction, the bending and spreading that occurs when it moves through an object or a small opening. Nineteenth-century experiments, which produced the Poisson spot instead of the solid darkness normally expected of a shadow, were major evidence for diffraction—the wave-like behavior of light.

Skyrmions have been studied from many angles over the years, first out of an interest in particle physics and nuclear physics; then in condensed matter physics and magnetic materials research, and now in photonics.

Producing Skyrmions

The new Poisson spot-based system developed by the NTU team creates four distinct patterns at the same time: spin skyrmions, Stokes skyrmions, electric-field skyrmions, and magnetic-field skyrmions. Spin describes how the light rotates, while Stokes parameters quantify the light wave’s polarization as it travels.

By possessing this “four-in-one” behavior, the researchers say these expressions could provide a valuable opportunity to study skyrmion formations, variety, and interaction within a single light field.

The NTU team’s simulations of skyrmions depict them as swirls of arrows, enabling researchers to track how light’s properties change direction as it traverses the Poisson spot. The intensity, phase, polarization, spin, electric, and magnetic field vectors of light can all be manipulated by scientists to create patterns in light called topological structures, enabling researchers to control the size, shape, and behavior of skyrmions.

“In the light spot that we created, several types of optical vectors could form topological structures at the same time,” Shen explained. “These different components of light are closely connected, but they do not necessarily form identical topological patterns.”

“Being able to produce and compare several skyrmions within one system could help researchers uncover new links between light’s electric, magnetic, and other physical properties,” Shen concluded.

Going forward, the NTU team hopes that their work will help to quite literally illuminate a new path for the future of data storage and communications technologies.

The paper, “Optical Skyrmions in Poisson Spots,” appeared in Optica on June 18, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.