Astronomers searching for extraterrestrial intelligence have traditionally focused on a specific, narrow band of the radio spectrum. However, a new survey presented at the Royal Astronomical Society‘s National Astronomy Meeting (NAM2026) in Birmingham suggests that this approach may overlook a significant portion of the available frequencies.

The frequencies most often investigated by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) programs are those between 1.42 and 1.66 GHz. This range, known as the ‘water hole’, is situated between the natural radio emissions of hydrogen and hydroxyl, the two molecules that make up water. Astronomers have regarded this quiet section of the spectrum as a reasonable place for interstellar communication, because any civilization acquainted with these molecules would probably also decide to send and receive signals in search of in that specific region.

Louisa Mason, who is carrying out research as a PhD student at the University of Manchester, focused on investigating frequencies outside the water hole range. To carry out the first SETI survey with that telescope, she used archived data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. She analyzed data originally collected for other astronomical studies instead of requesting new observation time.

Hunting for Signals in Unclaimed Territory

Mason focused on two narrow frequency bands in the ALMA Band 3 data, looking for narrowband signals that might be the result of technology rather than natural astrophysical origins. In the four observations that she examined, she did not discover any candidates for technosignatures above her detection threshold.

“For decades, SETI searches have concentrated on a relatively small part of the radio spectrum. We wanted to ask what might happen if we looked somewhere very different,” Mason said. “The millimetre and submillimetre radio bands remain almost completely unexplored for SETI, so this is really about opening up a new area of parameter space to search.”

A lack of results does not rule out the possibility of alien transmitters. It only means that none appeared in this specific region of the sky and frequency range. Mason describes the survey as a proof of concept, showing that high-frequency telescopes like ALMA could play a much larger role in future SETI efforts.

A Much Bigger Haystack Than Anyone Realized

The research also revealed a gap in how astronomers count the stars they have actually examined. Each time a telescope observes a single target, it also collects light from many other stars in the same field of view. Researchers refer to this as “stellar bycatch.”

Previous SETI surveys have made this bycatch estimate based on the Gaia catalog, which is the European Space Agency‘s survey of the stars. However, Gaia has certain limitations such as its magnitude cutoffs, uncertainties when measuring distant stars, and difficulties in crowded areas. To overcome these limitations, Mason used the Besançon Galactic Model, a simulation of the Milky Way’s stellar population that includes stars that are too faint or too far away for Gaia to detect.

When Mason applied the model to a previous survey of 1,327 telescope observations, the estimated number of stars observed increased from about 288,000 with Gaia to over 6.1 million with the galactic simulation.

“One of the most exciting things about this work is realizing that we’ve surveyed many more stars than initially thought,” Mason said. “Even a very small observation can contain a huge number and diversity of stars that we might never have intended to study. By combining high-frequency observations with galactic simulations, we can better understand exactly what we’ve searched and where we should look next.”

Recommendations for SETI

Mason carried out this research in collaboration with Professor Michael Garrett, Dr. Andrew Siemion, and Dr. Kelvin Wandia. The team argues that expanding both the radio frequencies searched and the number of stars included could reduce the influence of human assumptions on SETI strategies. Whether these broader searches will detect technosignatures missed by traditional water-hole surveys remains unknown.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

In May 2024, the strongest geomagnetic storm in two decades pushed the Northern Lights far enough south to become visible across much of the UK and beyond. Now, a study that appeared in Royal Society Open Science reveals that the incident also exposed important gaps in how the UK monitors and prepares its power grid, satellites, and aviation for future extreme space weather.

The storm reached a G5 rating, which is the highest level on the geomagnetic storm scale used by NOAA, as a result of five coronal mass ejections reaching Earth within a period of two days. Researchers with the Space Environment Impacts Expert Group (SEIEG) stated that although the storm caused only relatively minor disruption, it revealed shortcomings in the UK’s capacity to monitor and prepare for more severe space weather events.

The SEIEG then made 14 recommendations to the UK government addressing matters such as grid monitoring, satellite operations, and space weather forecasting. Richard Horne, chair of SEIEG and head of space weather at the British Antarctic Survey, recently gave a presentation on the findings at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham.

A Storm That Tested the Limits

Researchers estimate that the May 2024 storm was a one-in-13-year event. By contrast, a Carrington-class storm, like the 1859 event that defines the standard for extreme space weather, has about a 1% chance of occurring in any given year. This means that a much more disruptive storm is still possible. The SEIEG report uses the 2024 storm as a practical example to assess how prepared the UK is for a more severe event.

“The Northern Lights were the most visible sign of the May 2024 storm, but they were only one part of a much broader space weather event that tested the UK’s critical infrastructure. The storm highlighted where we need better monitoring, better forecasting and more research so we’re prepared for a more severe event in the future,” Horne said.

The Blind Spot in Britain’s Power Grid

Geomagnetic storms create electric fields at Earth’s surface that can drive geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) through long conductive systems, including power transmission networks. High levels of GICs can overheat transformers, disrupt their normal function, and in severe cases cause damage that may lead to failures across parts of the power grid.

Currently, there are no GIC monitors in operation in England or Wales. The SEIEG report recommends establishing a network of monitors to assess how much current various transformer designs can tolerate before sustaining damage.

New Zealand as the Model

The report cites New Zealand as an example of effective monitoring. Since it is at a similar geomagnetic latitude, the country faces similar space weather risks, and its grid operators monitor around 93 transformers across 28 substations. Unlike in England and Wales, where monitoring is absent, these operators have verified their models using actual measurements and implemented operational mitigation procedures during the May 2024 storm.

Crowded Skies, Rising Risk

The storm also affected satellites in orbit. Almost 5,000 satellites adjusted their orbits during the storm. Satellites licensed in the UK saw their number of collision warnings rise by 35%. Since there are now so many objects in low-Earth orbit, a serious storm could raise the risk of collisions, possibly resulting in debris and causing additional incidents.

Preparing for Future Storms

SEIEG also recommends improving forecasts of coronal mass ejections and solar energetic particle events to provide two to three hours of warning before severe geomagnetic storms reach Earth. Improved forecasts could allow grid operators, satellite controllers, and airlines to take protective measures before severe geomagnetic storms arrive. 

“One of the biggest lessons from the May 2024 storm is that we still have important gaps in our monitoring and understanding of how severe space weather could affect UK infrastructure,” said Horne. “We were fortunate that this was not a one-in-100-year event. We now have an opportunity to strengthen our monitoring, improve our forecasts and make sure the UK is better prepared before a much larger storm occurs.”

The 14 recommendations are now under review by the UK government. Whether these steps will be taken before a Carrington-scale storm occurs remains uncertain. With this extreme class of storms remaining a realistic possibility, the researchers argue that improving monitoring and forecasting now could reduce the impact of a future extreme event.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

When the brain tracks time, it must decide whether its regions should rely on a shared timing signal or tack time separately. A recent study in Nature Communications provides evidence that the brain uses both approaches, switching between them depending on the situation.

A group at the Institute of Science Tokyo simultaneously measured the activity of thousands of neurons in two mouse brain regions and found that the areas sometimes shared timing information but maintained more independent representations at other times. The researchers, led by Associate Professor Riichiro Hira, maintained that this flexibility enables the brain to remain stable as it adapts to changing requirements.

A Task Built to Catch the Brain Switching Modes

Hira’s team created a task to highlight this timing mystery. They trained mice to expect rewards at intervals that switched between 6 and 12 seconds, without any break to mark the end of one trial and the start of the next. Since there was no pause, the mice had to keep updating their internal sense of time throughout the experiment, instead of resetting their mental stopwatch for each new trial.

The mice eventually figured out the pattern. At first they expected a reward every six seconds even if the time they had to wait was longer than this, but by the end of the training session, their behavior indicated that they had learned to anticipate both reward intervals. This showed that the mice were capable of keeping track of both durations and of predicting which one would come next.

While the mice performed the task, the researchers recorded activity in their secondary motor cortex and the posterior parietal cortex using wide-field two-photon calcium imaging. Both regions play key roles in planning, prediction, and working memory.

Two Regions, Two Kinds of Mistakes

The neurons fired in sequence in each brain area, with different cells becoming active at different times. This sequence showed that each region was monitoring the passage of time.

The researchers also identified two kinds of errors in the neural activity. In some cases, both areas made the same mistake when assessing the passage of time. These coherent errors suggested that both regions sometimes shared the same timing drift. In other instances, only one region was inaccurate while the other remained correct. These independent errors suggested that one region could temporarily maintain a different timing representation from the other. Independent errors were more frequent than coherent ones, and this ratio remained the same in all the mice examined.

If the brain regions were just randomly out of sync, you’d expect the ratio to change. However, it didn’t, which suggests that the brain has a built-in way to balance working together and working independently.

Modeling the Switch Between Coherence and Independence

To identify this mechanism, the team built a computational model with two recurrent neural networks linked by sparse, long-range connections and exposed to the same background noise. The model produced the same 2-to-1 ratio of independent to coherent errors seen in the mice.

The model also discovered that the limited connections between the networks tended to cause them to become synchronized, while the common noise caused them to move in separate directions. Hira provided an explanation of the interaction saying, “We found sparse inter-regional connectivity promotes synchronization between the two regions, whereas widespread fluctuations prevent complete synchronization, allowing each region to preserve its own temporal representation.” Neither force takes precedence; instead, a compromise is reached which allows communication between the regions.

The findings challenge the idea that brain regions rely on a single synchronized timing system. It indicates that the brain can adjust how different parts are coordinated, rather than just turning that coordination on or off.

What a Flexible Clock Could Mean for the Brain

Hira’s team believes that there are implications beyond simple timing circuits. “In the future, our results may contribute to a better understanding of cognition, neurological disorders involving disrupted inter-regional coordination, and the development of brain-inspired artificial intelligence and robotic control systems that combine stability with flexibility,” said Hira.

This last idea may prove most important in the years ahead. Engineers building AI and robotic systems face a similar challenge: how to let separate parts work on their own when needed, yet still come back into sync. The mouse brain shows that sparse connections and shared background fluctuations can achieve this balance. This could point to a design principle that even applies to systems with no biological components.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

Recent research from North Carolina State University, published in Parasites & Vectors and Royal Society Open Science, suggests that localized mosquito-control practices may create conditions that favor the evolution of insecticide resistance in mosquito populations.

Aedes albopictus, commonly known as the tiger mosquito, is an invasive species that has become widespread across much of the eastern United States. It breeds in a variety of artificial and natural containers that collect standing water, such as gutters and buckets.

In North Carolina, control of this mosquito is often managed at the household level, either through private mosquito-control services or by individuals applying pyrethroid insecticides. These chemicals are widely used because they are effective against adult mosquitoes and considered among the safer insecticides for use around people, pets, and homes, but they are typically applied without coordination among neighboring properties.

Modeling Mosquito Mutations

In one study, a team led by Jennifer Baltzegar tracked the emergence and spread of a resistance mutation known as F1534S in tiger mosquitoes in Wake County between 2016 and 2024. They looked at the F1534S mutation, which researchers have associated with knockdown resistance.

The mutation was absent from the Wake County samples collected in 2016 and 2017. In 2023, the researchers detected the resistance-associated mutation in 84% of the sampled residential areas, and they found it in 39% of the mosquitoes they sampled. The researchers’ models indicated that the resistance allele was under strong selection pressure, meaning mosquitoes carrying it had a significant evolutionary advantage in the local environment.

“Homeowners with money will pay to spray for mosquitoes, which selects for localized resistance,” said Martha Burford Reiskind, associate professor of biological sciences at NC State and corresponding author on both papers. “Over time, as more and more resistance builds up in the population, it will become harder to control populations. The insecticides will no longer be as effective.”

Wealth as a Selection Pressure

A second study, led by Cole Butler, looked at how resistance is distributed across neighborhoods with different property values. The team sampled mosquito populations across 31 residential blocks throughout Raleigh, covering a range of property values. They found that neighborhoods with higher total property values, which the researchers used as an indicator of likely spending on pest control, showed higher frequencies of resistance. While the study did not track individual spraying habits, the pattern suggests that greater private investment in mosquito control may be contributing to the spread of resistance.

That pattern breaks from how insecticide resistance usually spreads globally. “We see the rapid rise of pesticide resistance in places like South America and Asia where there is continuous spraying in some countries,” Burford Reiskind said. “But resistance driven by private mosquito control is novel in the contiguous U.S., to our knowledge.”

How the Mutation Actually Works

The F1534S mutation occurs in the mosquito’s gene for the voltage-gated sodium channel, which is the same site where pyrethroid insecticides act. This genetic alteration decreases the mosquito’s sensitivity to pyrethroids and thus enables some individuals to survive exposure to insecticides. The resistance allele is only partially recessive, so not all mosquitoes display the full effect. As a result, the mutation can spread through a population before resistance is noticeable.

“This mutation is often the first to show up when there’s insecticide resistance,” Burford Reiskind said.

Where the Research Goes Next

Beyond being a nuisance, tiger mosquitoes can transmit diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and dog heartworm. While the current studies did not assess disease transmission directly, Michael Reiskind, a professor at NC State and co-author of both papers, notes that future research will expand to include a broader range of neighborhoods. “We want to make a better effort to get a diversity of neighborhoods, age, and wealth to extend our findings and see whether they work at different housing densities and wealth levels,” Reiskind said.

The researchers recommend using integrated pest management techniques since these methods decrease the need for chemical insecticides. They stressed that eliminating standing water where larvae develop is a key preventive measure. Effective pest control means addressing the entire life cycle and not depending just on chemical insecticides.

Putting these integrated approaches into practice may be challenging since many suburban homeowners already rely on seasonal mosquito-spraying services. The rapid development of resistance in Wake County suggests that managing this trend will likely require cooperation among homeowners, pest control companies, and public health agencies. Achieving that cooperation may require these groups to rethink how they manage private mosquito control.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

At the site of Gradište, close to the village of Mlado Nagoričane, archaeologists from North Macedonia have uncovered what they believe was a ritual dining complex associated with a Hellenistic sanctuary, providing new evidence of elite religious practices and extensive trade connections more than 2,300 years ago.

The discovery was made this year as part of an excavation campaign carried out by the National Institution Museum of Kumanovo.

This campaign focused on the Lower Terrace of the settlement. Earlier excavations had already uncovered rock-cut structures dating from the fourth century BC, stone features similar to tumuli, and a series of ritual deposits. The current excavation builds on this previous work and supports the view that the area served as an important religious center rather than a typical residential district.

A Goddess on a Storage Jar

To the east of a previously identified burial mound, the team found the walls of a building full of broken pithoi and other storage jars. One of these jars contained a decorated surface featuring finger-ring impressions showing a female deity.

Archaeologists believe the deity is Demeter, the ancient Greek Olympian goddess of agriculture, the harvest, and fertility, shown holding a cornucopia and pouring a libation from a kantharos onto a tripod. The team sees the imagery as strong evidence that ritual ceremonies occurred at the site.

Feasting in the Shadow of the Sanctuary Wall

In more southern areas, the excavators discovered part of a peribolos wall, a boundary intended to separate the sacred area from the rest of the settlement. Nearby, they came across a small room that archaeologists believe served as a space for ritual dining and symposium-style feasting linked to ceremonies within the sanctuary.

Although the room itself was modest in size, its contents suggest it served an important ceremonial purpose. Archaeologists found large amounts of animal bones, including those of wild boar and goats, suggesting communal feasting formed part of the site’s religious activities. Along with the bones, archaeologists recovered a notably rich assortment of imported Hellenistic tableware, including West Slope gutti, decorated kantharoi, and black-glazed echinus bowls with palmette designs, as well as amphorae, hydriae, additional drinking vessels, lamps, and terracotta figurines.

“The room was most likely associated with rituals performed within the temenos and appears to have been used for ritual dining,” the excavation team said, drawing a direct comparison to the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone at ancient Corinth.

A Couch Fit for a Deity

Another significant discovery was the architectural remains of a dining table, together with ornate fragments from a ceremonial dining couch, or kline. The finds include a molded couch leg and an appliqué depicting a reclining deity holding a phiale, a shallow vessel used for libations.

Researchers suggest the figure was part of a wider scene depicting a sympotic procession or a gathering of the gods. Ornaments of this type are uncommon outside of elite Hellenistic burial settings. Archaeologists have previously uncovered similar kline ornaments at wealthy Hellenistic burial sites in Pella and the royal tombs at Aigai.

A Growing Picture of Gradište

For a long time now, Gradište has been yielding very significant discoveries. Previous excavations at Gradište uncovered a peristyle building decorated with painted plaster, along with imported amphorae and finely crafted ceramics. Together with the latest discoveries, the finds suggest the settlement was well connected to the broader cultural and commercial networks of the Hellenistic world.

Future excavations will focus on expanding the newly discovered buildings and determining whether a temple once stood within this part of the sanctuary.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.