Science – Page 11

Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed

Archeology, Food science, geophysics, Mars, planetary geology, research roundup, Science, snakes / Mike M. / November 1, 2025

Also: the science of regular vs. gluten-free spaghetti, catching high-speed snake bites in action, etc.

Karnak Temple, Luxor, Egypt. Credit: Ben Pennington

It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we’re experimenting with a monthly collection. October’s list includes the microstructural differences between regular and gluten-free spaghetti, capturing striking snakes in action, the mystery behind the formation of Martian gullies, and—for all you word game enthusiasts—an intriguing computational proof of the highest possible scoring Boggle board.

Highest-scoring Boggle board

boggle board showing highest scoring selection of letters — Credit: Dan Vanderkam

Sometimes we get handy story tips from readers about quirkily interesting research projects. Sometimes those projects involve classic games like Boggle, in which players find as many words as they can from a 4×4 grid of 16 lettered cubic dice, within a given time limit. Software engineer Dan Vanderkam alerted us to a a preprint he posted to the physics arXiv, detailing his quest to find the Boggle board configuration that yields the highest possible score. It’s pictured above, with a total score of 3,625 points, according to Vanderkam’s first-ever computational proof. There are more than 1000 possible words, with “replastering” being the longest.

Vanderkam has documented his quest and its resolution (including the code he used) extensively on his blog, admitting to the Financial Times that, “As far as I can tell, I’m the only person who is actually interested in this problem.” That’s not entirely true: there was an attempt in 1982 that found an optimal board yielding 2,195 points. Vanderkam’s board was known as possibly being the highest scoring, it was just very difficult to prove using standard heuristic search methods. Vanderkam’s solution involved grouping board configurations with similar patterns into classes, and then finding upper bounds to discard clear losers, rather than trying to tally scores for each board individually—i.e., an old school “branch and bound” technique.

DOI: arXiv, 2025. 10.48550/arXiv.2507.02117 (About DOIs).

Origins of Egypt’s Karnak Temple

Core samples being extracted at Karnak Temple — Credit: Ben Pennington

Egypt’s Karnak Temple complex, located about 500 meters of the Nile River near Luxor, has long been of interest to archaeologists and millions of annual tourists alike. But its actual age has been a matter of much debate. The most comprehensive geological survey conducted to date is yielding fresh insights into the temple’s origins and evolution over time, according to a paper published in the journal Antiquity.

The authors analyzed sediment cores and thousands of ceramic fragments from within and around the site to map out how the surrounding landscape has changed. They concluded that early on, circa 2520 BCE, the site would have experienced regular flooding from the Nile; thus, the earliest permanent settlement at Karnak would have emerged between 2591 and 2152 BCE, in keeping with the earliest dated ceramic fragments. This would have been after river channels essentially created an island of higher ground that served as the foundation for constructing the temple. As those channels diverged over millennia, the available area for the temple expanded and thus, so did the complex.

This might be supported by Egyptian creation myths. “It’s tempting to suggest the Theban elites chose Karnak’s location for the dwelling place of a new form of the creator god, ‘Ra-Amun,’ as it fitted the cosmogonical scene of high ground emerging from surrounding water,” said co-author Ben Pennington, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Southampton. “Later texts of the Middle Kingdom (c.1980–1760 BC) develop this idea, with the ‘primeval mound’ rising from the ‘Waters of Chaos.’ During this period, the abating of the annual flood would have echoed this scene, with the mound on which Karnak was built appearing to ‘rise’ and grow from the receding floodwaters.”

DOI: Antiquity, 2025. 10.15184/aqy.2025.10185 (About DOIs).

Gullies on Mars

Mars dune with gullies in the Russell crater. On their way down, the ice blocks threw up levees. — Credit: HiRISE/NASA/JPL/University of Arizon

Mars has many intriguing features but one of the more puzzling is the sinuous gullies that form on some its dunes. Scientists have proposed two hypotheses for how such gullies might form. The first is that they are the result of debris flow from an earlier time in the planet’s history where liquid water might have existed on the surface—evidence that the red planet might once have been habitable. The second is that the gullies form because of seasonal deposition and sublimation of CO2 ice on the surface in the present day. A paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters demonstrated strong evidence in favor of the latter hypothesis.

Building on her earlier research on how sublimation of CO2 ice can drive debris flows on Mars, earth scientist Lonneke Roelofs of Utrecht University in the Netherlands collaborated with scientists at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, which boasts a facility for simulating conditions on Mars. She ran several experiments with different sediment types, creating dune slopes of different angles and dropping blocks of CO2 ice from the top of the slope. At just the right angle, the blocks did indeed start digging into the sandy slope and moving downwards to create a gully. Roelofs likened the effect to a burrowing mole or the sandworms in Dune.

Per Roelofs, on Mars, CO2 ice forms over the surface during the winter and starts to sublimate in the spring. The ice blocks are remnants found on the shaded side of dune tops, where they break off once the temperature gets high enough and slide down the slope. At the bottom, they keep sublimating until all the CO2 has evaporated, leaving behind a hollow of sand.

DOI: Geophysical Research Letters, 2025. 10.1029/2024GL112860 (About DOIs).

Snake bites in action

S.G.C. Cleuren et al., 2025

Snakes can strike out and bite into prey in as little as 60 microseconds and until quite recently it just wasn’t technologically possible to capture those strikes in high definition. Researchers at Monash University in Australia decided to test 36 different species of snake in this way to learn more about their unique biting styles, detailing their results in a paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. And oh yes, there is awesome video footage.

Alistair Evans and Silke Cleuren traveled to Venomworld in Paris, France, where snake venom is harvested for medical and pharmaceutical applications. For each snake species, they poked at said snake with a cylindrical piece of warm medical gel to mimic meaty muscle until the snake lunged and buried its fangs into the gel. Two cameras recorded the action at 1000 frames per second, capturing more than 100 individual strikes in great detail.

Among their findings: vipers moved the fastest when they struck, with the blunt-nosed viper accelerating up to 710 m/s², landing a bite within 22 microseconds. All the vipers landed bites within 100 microseconds of striking. By contrast, the rough-scaled death adder only reached speeds of 2.5 m/s². Vipers also sometimes pulled out and reinserted their fangs if they didn’t like the resulting angle; only then did they inject their venom. Elapids like the Cape coral cobra bit their prey repeatedly to inject their venom, while colubrids would tear gashes into their prey by sweeping their jaws from side to side, ensuing the maximum possible amount of venom was delivered.

DOI: Journal of Experimental Biology, 2025. 10.1242/jeb.250347 (About DOIs).

Spaghetti secrets

Spaghetti, like most pasta, is made of semolina flour, which is mixed with water to form a paste and then extruded to create a desired shape. The commercial products are then dried—an active area of research, since it’s easy for the strands to crack during the process. In fact, there have been a surprisingly large number of scientific papers seeking to understand the various properties of spaghetti, both cooking and eating it—the mechanics of slurping the pasta into one’s mouth, for instance, or spitting it out (aka, the “reverse spaghetti problem”); how to tell when it’s perfectly al dente; and how to get dry spaghetti strands to break neatly in two, rather than three or more scattered pieces.

Pasta also has a fairly low glycemic index, and is thus a good option for those with heart disease or type 2 diabetes. With the rise in the number of people with a gluten intolerance, gluten-free spaghetti has emerged as an alternative. The downside is that gluten-free pasta is harder to cook correctly and decidedly subpar in taste and texture (mouthfeel) compared to regular pasta. The reason for the latter lies in the microstructure, according to a paper published in the journal Food Hydrocolloids.

The authors used small-angle x-ray scattering and small-angle neutron scattering to analyze the microstructure of both regular and gluten-free pasta—i.e., the gluten matrix and its artificial counterpart—cooked al dente with varying salt concentrations in the water. They found that because of its gluten matrix, regular pasta has better resistance to structural degradation, and that adding just the right amount of salt further reinforces that matrix—so it’s not just a matter of salting to taste. This could lead to a better alternative matrix for gluten-free pasta that holds its structure better and has a taste and mouthfeel closer to that of regular pasta.

DOI: Food Hydrocolloids, 2025. 10.1016/j.foodhyd.2025.111855 (About DOIs).

Can machine learning identify ancient artists?

Dr Andrea Jalandoni studies finger flutings at a cave site in Australia — Credit: Andrea Jalandoni

Finger flutings are one of the oldest examples of prehistoric art, usually found carved into the walls of caves in southern Australia, New Guinea, and parts of Europe. They’re basically just marks made by human fingers drawn through the “moonmilk” (a soft mineral film) covering those walls. Very little is known about the people who left those flutings and while some have tried to draw inferences based on biometric finger ratios or hand size measurements—notably whether given marks were made by men or women—such methods produce inconsistent results and are prone to human error and bias.

That’s why digital archaeologist Andrea Jaladonia of Griffith University decided to experiment with machine learning image recognition methods as a possible tool, detailing her findings in a paper published the journal Scientific Reports. She recruited 96 adult volunteers to create their own finger flutings in two different settings: once in a virtual reality environment, and once on a substitute for the moonmilk clay that mimicked the look and feel of the real thing. Her team took images of those flutings and then used them to train two common image recognition models.

The results were decidedly mixed. The virtual reality images performed the worst, yielding highly unreliable attempts at classifying whether flutings were made by men or women. The images produced in actual clay produced better results, even reaching close to 84 percent accuracy in one model. But there were also signs the models were overfitting, i.e., memorizing patterns in the training data rather than more generalized patterns, so the approach needs more refinement before it is ready for actual deployment. As for why determining sex classifications matters, “This information has been used to decide who can access certain sites for cultural reasons,” Jalandoni explained.

DOI: Scientific Reports, 2025. 10.1038/s41598-025-18098-4 (About DOIs).

Jennifer is a senior writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban.

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Wear marks suggest Neanderthals made ocher crayons

ancient people did stuff, Archaeology, Neanderthals, paleoarchaeology, Science, stone tools / Kris Guyer / November 1, 2025

“The combination of shaping, wear, and resharpening indicates they were used to draw or mark on soft surfaces,” D’Errico told Ars in an email. “Although the material is too fragile to reveal the specific material on which they were used, such as hide, human skin, or stone, an experimental approach may, in the future, allow us at least to rule out their use on some materials.”

A 73,000-year-old drawing from Blombo Cave in South Africa looks like it was made with tools much like the ocher crayons from Crimea, which means that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens both invented crayons in their own little corners of the world at around the same time.

Image of a reddish-brown rock with a series of lines carved in its surface — The surface of this flat piece of orange ocher was carved over 47,000 years ago, then worn smooth, perhaps by carrying in a bag. Credit: D’Errico et al. 2025

Sometimes you’re the crayon, sometimes you’re the canvas

A third item from Zaskalnaya V is a flat piece of orange ocher. One side is covered with a thin layer of hard, dark rock. But more than 47,000 years ago, someone carefully cut several deep lines, regularly spaced and almost parallel, into its surface. The area of stone between the lines has been worn and polished smooth, suggesting that someone carried it and handled it for years.

“The polish smoothing the engraved lines suggest that the piece was curated, perhaps transported in a bag,” D’Errico told Ars. Whoever carved the lines into the piece of ocher also appears to have been right-handed, based on the angle of the incisions’ walls.

The finds join a host of other evidence of Neanderthal artwork and jewelry, from 57,000-year-old finger marks on a cave wall in France to 114,000-year-old ocher-painted shells in Spain.

“Traditionally viewed as lacking the cognitive flexibility and symbolic capacity of humans, the Neanderthals of Crimea demonstrate the opposite: They engaged in cultural practices that were not merely adaptive but deeply meaningful,” wrote D’Errico and his colleagues. “Their sophisticated use of ocher is one facet of their complex cultural life.”

photo of a reddish-brown pointed rock from four angles — The tip of this red ocher crayon was broken off. Credit: D’Errico et al. 2025

Coloring in some details of Neanderthal culture

It’s hard to say whether the rest of the ocher from the Zaskalnaya sites and other nearby rock shelters meant anything to the Neanderthals beyond the purely pragmatic. However, it’s unlikely that humans (of any stripe) could spend 70,000 years working with vividly colored pigment without developing a sense of aesthetics, assigning some meaning to the colors, or maybe doing both.

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Neural network finds an enzyme that can break down polyurethane

AI, biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, enzymes, neural networks, polymers, polyurethane, protein design, proteins, Science / Tim Belzer / October 31, 2025

You’ll often hear plastic pollution referred to as a problem. But the reality is that it’s multiple problems. Depending on the properties we need, we form plastics out of different polymers, each of which is held together by a distinct type of chemical bond. So the method we use to break down one type of polymer may be incompatible with the chemistry of another.

That problem is why, even though we’ve had success finding enzymes that break down common plastics like polyesters and PET, they’re only partial solutions to plastic waste. However, researchers aren’t sitting back and basking in the triumph of partial solutions, and they’ve now got very sophisticated protein design tools to help them out.

That’s the story behind a completely new enzyme that researchers developed to break down polyurethane, the polymer commonly used to make foam cushioning, among other things. The new enzyme is compatible with an industrial-style recycling process that breaks the polymer down into its basic building blocks, which can be used to form fresh polyurethane.

Breaking down polyurethane

Image of a set of chemical bonds. From left to right there is an X, then a single bond to an oxygen, then a single bond to an oxygen that's double-bonded to carbon, then a single bond to a nitrogen, then a single bond to another X. — The basics of the chemical bonds that link polyurethanes. The rest of the polymer is represented by X’s here.

The new paper that describes the development of this enzyme lays out the scale of the problem: In 2024, we made 22 million metric tons of polyurethane. The urethane bond that defines these involves a nitrogen bonded to a carbon that in turn is bonded to two oxygens, one of which links into the rest of the polymer. The rest of the polymer, linked by these bonds, can be fairly complex and often contains ringed structures related to benzene.

Digesting polyurethanes is challenging. Individual polymer chains are often extensively cross-linked, and the bulky structures can make it difficult for enzymes to get at the bonds they can digest. A chemical called diethylene glycol can partially break these molecules down, but only at elevated temperatures. And it leaves behind a complicated mess of chemicals that can’t be fed back into any useful reactions. Instead, it’s typically incinerated as hazardous waste.

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New study settles 40-year debate: Nanotyrannus is a new species

Nanotyrannus, paleontology, Science, Taxonomy, tyrannosaurs / Kris Guyer / October 30, 2025

For four decades, a frequently acrimonious debate has raged in paleontological circles about the correct taxonomy for a handful of rare fossil specimens. One faction insisted the fossils were juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex; the other argued that they represented a new species dubbed Nanotyrannus lancensis. Now, paleontologists believe they have settled the debate once and for all due to a new analysis of a well-preserved fossil.

The verdict: It is indeed a new species, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature. The authors also reclassified another specimen as a second new species, distinct from N. lancensis. In short, Nanotyrannus is a valid taxon and contains two species.

“This fossil doesn’t just settle the debate,” said Lindsay Zanno, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University and head of paleontology at North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “It flips decades of T. rex research on its head.” That’s because paleontologists have relied on such fossils to model the growth and behavior of T. rex. The new findings suggest that there could have been multiple tyrannosaur species and that paleontologists have been underestimating the diversity of dinosaurs from this period.

Our story begins in 1942, when the fossilized skull of a Nanotyrannus, nicknamed Chomper, was excavated in Montana by a Cleveland Museum of Natural History expedition. Originally, paleontologists thought it belonged to a Gorgosaurus, but a 1965 paper challenged that identification and argued that the skull belonged to a juvenile T. rex. It wasn’t until 1988 that scientists proposed that the skull was actually that of a new species, Nanotyrannus. It’s been a constant back-and-forth ever since.

As recently as 2020, a highly influential paper claimed that Nanotyrannus was definitively a juvenile T. Rex. Yet a substantial number of paleontologists still believed it should be classified as a distinct species. A January 2024 paper, for instance, came down firmly on the Nanotyrannus side of the debate. Co-authors Nicholas Longrich of the University of Bath and Evan Saitta of the University of Chicago measured the growth rings in Nanotyrannus bones and concluded the animals were nearly fully grown.

Dueling dinosaurs

Lindsay Zanno, associate research professor at North Carolina State University and head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, with the Dueling Dinosaurs fossil. — Lindsay Zanno of North Carolina State University, who also heads paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, with the “dueling dinosaurs” fossil. Credit: N.C. State University/CC BY-NC-ND

Furthermore, there was no evidence of hybrid fossils combining features of both Nanotyrannus and T. rex, which one would expect if the former were a juvenile version of the latter. Longrich and Saitta had also discovered a skull bone, archived in a San Francisco museum, that did belong to a juvenile T. rex, and they were able to do an anatomical comparison. They argued that Nanotyrannus had a lighter build, longer limbs, and larger arms than a T. rex and likely was smaller, faster, and more agile.

New study settles 40-year debate: Nanotyrannus is a new species Read More »

The chemistry behind that pricey cup of civet coffee

chemistry, coffee, Food science, kopi luwak, Science / Kris Guyer / October 29, 2025

A sampling of scat

Kopi luwak is quite popular, with well-established markets in several South and East Asian countries. Its popularity has risen in Europe and the US as well, and India has recently become an emerging new market. Since there haven’t been similar studies of the chemical properties of kopi luwak from the Indian subcontinent, the authors of this latest study decided to fill that scientific gap. They focused on civet coffee produced in Kodagu, which produces nearly 36 percent of India’s total coffee production.

The authors collected 68 fresh civet scat samples from five different sites in Kodagu during peak fruit harvesting in January of this year. Collectors wore gloves to avoid contamination of the samples. For comparative analysis, they also harvested several bunches of ripened Robusta coffee berries. They washed the scat samples to remove the feces and also removed any palm seeds or other elements to ensure only Robusta beans remained.

For the manually harvested berries, the authors removed the pulp after a natural fermentation process and then sun-dried the beans for seven days. They then removed the hulls of both scat-derived and manually harvested berries and dried the beans in an oven for two hours. None of the bean samples were roasted, since roasting might significantly alter the acidity and chemical composition of the samples. For the chemical analysis, 10 distinct samples (five from each site where berries were collected) were ground into powder and subjected to various tests.

The civet beans had higher fat levels, particularly those compounds known to influence aroma and flavor, such as caprylic acid and methyl esters—contributing to kopi luwak’s distinctive aroma and flavor—but lower levels of caffeine, protein, and acidity, which would reduce the bitterness. The lower acidity is likely due to the coffee berries being naturally fermented in the civets’ digestive tracts, and there is more to learn about the role the gut microbiome plays in all of this. There were also several volatile organic compounds, common to standard coffee, that were extremely low or absent entirely in the civet samples.

In short, the comparative analysis “further supports the notion that civet coffee is chemically different from conventionally produced coffee of similar types, mainly due to fermentation,” the authors concluded. They recommend further research using roasted samples, along with studying other coffee varieties, samples from a more diverse selection of farms, and the influence of certain ecological conditions, such as canopy cover and the presence of wild trees.

Scientific Reports, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-21545-x (About DOIs).

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Westinghouse is claiming a nuclear deal would see $80B of new reactors

Energy, nuclear energy, nuclear power, reactors, Science, Westinghouse / Rejus Almole / October 28, 2025

On Tuesday, Westinghouse announced that it had reached an agreement with the Trump administration that would purportedly see $80 billion of new nuclear reactors built in the US. And the government indicated that it had finalized plans for a collaboration of GE Vernova and Hitachi to build additional reactors. Unfortunately, there are roughly zero details about the deal at the moment.

The agreements were apparently negotiated during President Trump’s trip to Japan. An announcement of those agreements indicates that “Japan and various Japanese companies” would invest “up to” $332 billion for energy infrastructure. This specifically mentioned Westinghouse, GE Vernova, and Hitachi. This promises the construction of both large AP1000 reactors and small modular nuclear reactors. The announcement then goes on to indicate that many other companies would also get a slice of that “up to $332 billion,” many for basic grid infrastructure.

So the total amount devoted to nuclear reactors is not specified in the announcement or anywhere else. As of the publication time, the Department of Energy has no information on the deal; Hitachi, GE Vernova, and the Hitachi/GE Vernova collaboration websites are also silent on it.

Meanwhile, Westinghouse claims that it will be involved in the construction of “at least $80 billion of new reactors,” a mix of AP1000 and AP300 (each named for the MW of capacity of the reactor/generator combination). The company claims that doing so will “reinvigorate the nuclear power industrial base.”

Westinghouse is claiming a nuclear deal would see $80B of new reactors Read More »

Melissa strikes Jamaica, tied as most powerful Atlantic storm to come ashore

hurricane, jamaica, melissa, Science / Rejus Almole / October 28, 2025

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica, near New Hope, on Tuesday at 1 pm ET with staggeringly powerful sustained winds of 185 mph.

In the National Hurricane Center update noting the precise landfall time and location, specialist Larry Kelly characterized Melissa as an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening” hurricane. Melissa is bringing very heavy rainfall, damaging surge, and destructive winds to the small Caribbean island that is home to about 3 million people.

The effects on the island are sure to be catastrophic and prolonged.

A record-breaking hurricane by any measure

By any measure, Melissa is an extraordinary and catastrophic storm.

By strengthening overnight and then maintaining its incredible intensity of 185 mph, Melissa has tied the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 as the most powerful hurricane to strike a landmass in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the United States, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean islands.

Melissa also tied the Labor Day storm, which struck the Florida Keys, as the most intense storm at landfall, measured by central pressure at 892 millibars.

Overall, Melissa is tied for the second strongest hurricane, measured by winds, ever observed in the Atlantic basin, behind only Hurricane Allen and its 190 mph winds in 1980. Only Hurricane Wilma (882 millibars) and Gilbert (888 millibars) have recorded lower pressures at sea.

Melissa strikes Jamaica, tied as most powerful Atlantic storm to come ashore Read More »

Why imperfection could be key to Turing patterns in nature

animals, Biology, Science, Turing mechanism, Turing patterns / Rejus Almole / October 27, 2025

In essence, it’s a type of symmetry breaking. Any two processes that act as activator and inhibitor will produce periodic patterns and can be modeled using Turing’s diffusion function. The challenge is moving from Turing’s admittedly simplified model to pinpointing the precise mechanisms serving in the activator and inhibitor roles.

This is especially challenging in biology. Per the authors of this latest paper, the classical approach to a Turing mechanism balances reaction and diffusion using a single length scale, but biological patterns often incorporate multiscale structures, grain-like textures, or certain inherent imperfections. And the resulting patterns are often much blurrier than those found in nature.

Can you say “diffusiopherosis”?

Simulated hexagon and stripe patterns obtained by diffusiophoretic assembly of two types of cells on top of the chemical patterns. Credit: Siamak Mirfendereski and Ankur Gupta/CU Boulder

In 2023, UCB biochemical engineers Ankur Gupta and Benjamin Alessio developed a new model that added diffusiopherosis into the mix. It’s a process by which colloids are transported via differences in solute concentration gradients—the same process by which soap diffuses out of laundry in water, dragging particles of dirt out of the fabric. Gupta and Alessio successfully used their new model to simulate the distinctive hexagon pattern (alternating purple and black) on the ornate boxfish, native to Australia, achieving much sharper outlines than the model originally proposed by Turing.

The problem was that the simulations produced patterns that were too perfect: hexagons that were all the same size and shape and an identical distance apart. Animal patterns in nature, by contrast, are never perfectly uniform. So Gupta and his UCB co-author on this latest paper, Siamak Mirfendereski, figured out how to tweak the model to get the pattern outputs they desired. All they had to do was define specific sizes for individual cells. For instance, larger cells create thicker outlines, and when they cluster, they produce broader patterns. And sometimes the cells jam up and break up a stripe. Their revised simulations produced patterns and textures very similar to those found in nature.

“Imperfections are everywhere in nature,” said Gupta. “We proposed a simple idea that can explain how cells assemble to create these variations. We are drawing inspiration from the imperfect beauty of [a] natural system and hope to harness these imperfections for new kinds of functionality in the future.” Possible future applications include “smart” camouflage fabrics that can change color to better blend with the surrounding environment, or more effective targeted drug delivery systems.

Matter, 2025. DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2025.102513 (About DOIs).

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Melissa set to be the strongest hurricane to ever strike Jamaica

hurricanes, jamaica, melissa, Science, Weather / Mike M. / October 27, 2025

The sole bright spot is that, as of Monday, the core of the storm’s strongest winds remains fairly small. Based on recent data, its hurricane-force winds only extend about 25 miles from the center. Unfortunately, Melissa will make a direct hit on Jamaica, with the island’s capital city of Kingston to the right of the center, where winds and surge will be greatest.

Beyond Jamaica, Melissa will likely be one of the strongest hurricanes on record to hit Cuba. Melissa will impact the eastern half of the island on Tuesday night, bringing the trifecta of heavy rainfall, damaging winds, and storm surge. The storm also poses lesser threats to Hispaniola, the Bahamas, and potentially Bermuda down the line. There will be no impacts in the United States.

A sneakily strong season

Most US coastal residents will consider this Atlantic season, which officially ends in a little more than a month, to be fairly quiet. There have been relatively few direct impacts to the United States from named storms.

One can see the signatures of Erin, Humberto, and Melissa in this chart of Accumulated Cyclone Energy for 2025. Credit: CyclonicWx.com

But this season has been sneakily strong. Melissa is just the 45th storm since 1851 to reach Category 5 status, as defined as having sustained winds of 157 mph or greater. Already this year, Erin and Humberto reached Category 5 status, and now Melissa is the third such hurricane. Fortunately, the former two storms posed minimal threat to land.

Before this year, there had only ever been one season with three Category 5 hurricanes on record: 2005, which featured three storms that all impacted US Gulf states and had their names retired, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma.

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Whale and dolphin migrations are being disrupted by climate change

dolphins, marine environment, marine life, Migration Assistant, Science, syndication, whales / Paul Patrick / October 25, 2025

Marine mammals are being forced into new and more dangerous waters, scientists warn.

Credit: Martin van Aswegen/NOAA

For millennia, some of the world’s largest filter-feeding whales, including humpbacks, fin whales, and blue whales, have undertaken some of the longest migrations on earth to travel between their warm breeding grounds in the tropics to nutrient-rich feeding destinations in the poles each year.

“Nature has finely tuned these journeys, guided by memory and environmental cues that tell whales when to move and where to go,” said Trisha Atwood, an ecologist and associate professor at Utah State University’s Quinney College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. But, she said, climate change is “scrambling these signals,” forcing the marine mammals to veer off course. And they’re not alone.

Earlier this year, Atwood joined more than 70 other scientists to discuss the global impacts of climate change on migratory species in a workshop convened by the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The organization monitors and protects more than 1,000 species that cross borders in search of food, mates, and favorable conditions to nurture their offspring.

More than 20 percent of these species are on the brink of extinction. It was the first time the convention had gathered for such a purpose, and their findings, published this month in a report, were alarming.

“Almost no migratory species is untouched by climate change,” Atwood said in an email to Inside Climate News.

From whales and dolphins, to arctic shorebirds and elephants, all are affected by rising temperatures, extreme weather, and shifting ecosystems, which are disrupting migratory routes and reshaping critical habitats across the planet.

Asian elephants, for instance, are being driven to higher ground and closer to human settlements as they search for food and water amidst intensifying droughts, fueling more frequent human-elephant conflicts, the report found. Shorebirds are reaching their Arctic breeding grounds out of sync with the insect blooms their chicks depend on to survive.

The seagrass meadows that migrating sea turtles and dugongs feed on are disappearing due to warmer waters, cyclones, and sea level rise, according to the report. To date, around 30 percent of the world’s known seagrass beds have been lost, threatening not only the animals that depend on them, but also humans. These vital ecosystems store around 20 percent of the world’s oceanic carbon, in addition to supporting fisheries and protecting coastlines.

Together, these examples reveal how climate change is tipping the delicate balance migratory species have long relied on to survive.

“Climate change is disrupting this balance by altering when and where resources appear, how abundant they are, the environmental conditions species must endure, and the other organisms they interact with, reshaping entire networks of predators and competitors,” Atwood said.

Especially among marine life.

On the United States’ West Coast, for instance, Atwood said, warming waters are pushing juvenile great white sharks out of their traditional southern habitats. This shift has led to a sharp rise in sea otter deaths in Monterey Bay, California, where they are increasingly getting bitten by the sharks.

Whales and dolphins are particularly vulnerable species as rising temperatures threaten both their prey and their habitat, according to the report.

Heatwaves in the Mediterranean are projected to reduce suitable habitat for endangered fin whales by up to 70 percent by mid-century as their prey dwindles or moves due to rising temperatures. In some places, such as the Northern Adriatic Sea, hotter temperatures may eventually prove intolerable for bottlenose dolphins. “Rising water temperatures could exceed the species’ physiological tolerance,” the report says, which also acknowledges that this is already happening in other parts of the world, such as the Amazon River.

In 2023, more than 200 river dolphins, which migrate seasonally between tributaries and lagoons in the Amazon, died due to record-high temperatures, along with much of their prey. In some areas, their shallow aquatic habitats exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit. “The river systems were unusually empty and dry and the animals got isolated,” said Mark Simmonds, scientific councilor for marine pollution for the U.N. convention, who led some of the discussions around climate change impacts on cetaceans at the workshop in February. “They lost the water that they would have been living in.”

Loss of prey in traditional habitats is of particular concern for migrating marine mammals that are forced to follow their prey into new, and sometimes more perilous, waters.

This is particularly evident in the case of critically endangered North Atlantic Right whales, which the report says are especially prone to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear as they pursue their prey—tiny crustaceans called copepods—which are moving toward cooler waters. There are fewer than 400 of the whales left.

The North Pacific humpback whales that feed off the coast of California are also at risk.

According to the report, these whales have experienced significant changes in their migratory routes due to climate-driven shifts, which has resulted in many getting entangled in dungeness crab fishing gear.

While it is not completely clear what is driving these shifts, Ari Friedlaender, an ecologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who monitors whale migrations and did not attend the convention’s workshop, said it could be that changing ocean conditions may be pushing the whales’ prey closer to shore.

“The timing of when these animals migrate now puts them in overlap with that fishery, whereas [previously] they would have migrated through that same area, but at a different time of year,” he said.

In some places, such as the Southern Ocean, Freidlaender said he is especially concerned about the overall availability of prey needed to sustain the whales that feed there. “The food is limited in Antarctica.”

Ideally, migrating whales arrive at their polar feeding grounds right around the same time that krill, their preferred prey, are swarming in massive aggregations in response to phytoplankton blooms, which the little creatures feed on. This synchronicity allows the whales to gorge for several months while building the fat reserves they need to survive long stretches of time that they will go without food as they migrate back to their breeding grounds to mate and calve. But warmer temperatures and melting sea ice are disrupting these cycles.

Krill blooms in polar regions are weakening, peaking earlier, or failing to materialize altogether, Atwood said.“Increasingly, whales reach their feeding grounds to find krill stocks depleted.” This, in turn, forces the whales to travel even greater distances in search of sustenance. But it doesn’t always mean they find it.

“There may not even be an opportunity to go to a place where there is more food,” said Friedlaender.

Krill thrive in icy environments. They graze on algae growing on the underbelly of sea ice, which also provides a nursery-like environment for krill larvae to grow safely without being preyed upon. But as this sea ice disappears, some krill are leaving their traditional habitats and moving towards colder waters. Others are vanishing altogether. In some years, where there’s less sea ice, Friedlaender said, “There’s just not enough food around.”

As a result, it’s becoming more common to see some of the world’s largest whales, including humpbacks, showing up in tropical breeding grounds “looking very skinny,” Simmonds said.

This can have significant repercussions on their health, Friedlaender said, including their ability to reproduce. “It could have those sort of cascading impacts of really changing the dynamics of how that population grows.”

To conserve whales and other migratory marine life, Friedlaender said, static protections such as implementing marine protected areas are not enough. Instead, he said, dynamic management strategies must be created and implemented that help protect the animals as they move, such as real-time monitoring of whale movements, shifting shipping lanes or requiring vessel speed limits when whales are present, as well as stricter fishing regulations in key habitats. Ongoing research into how climate change is reshaping animal migrations around the world is also critical, Atwood said, not only to safeguard the species themselves but to protect the ecosystems they help sustain.

“Because these animals are so uniquely adapted to move across huge swaths of land and oceans, oblivious to political borders, the solutions must be just as dynamic, far-reaching, and borderless,” she said. “Effective responses therefore require an integrated understanding of projected climatic and habitat changes, species’ ecologies and behavioral responses, and mechanisms for fostering international cooperation.”

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

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DNA analysis reveals likely pathogens that killed Napoleon’s army

Biology, DNA analysis, forensic archaeology, history, Napoleon Bonaparte, pathogens, Science / Rejus Almole / October 25, 2025

State-of-the-art methodologies

Rascovan and his co-authors note in their paper that the 2006 study relied upon outdated PCR-based technologies for its DNA analysis. As for the virus family detected in the Kalingrad dental pulp, they argue that those viruses are both ubiquitous and usually asymptomatic in humans—and thus are unlikely to be the primary culprits for the diseases that wiped out the French army. So Rascovan’s team decided to use current state-of-the-art DNA methodologies to re-analyze a different set of remains of Napoleonic soldiers who died in Vilnius.

“In most ancient human remains, pathogen DNA is extremely fragmented and only present in very low quantities, which makes it very difficult to obtain whole genomes,” said Rascovan. “So we need methods capable of unambiguously identifying infectious agents from these weak signals, and sometimes even pinpointing lineages, to explore the pathogenic diversity of the past.”

An 1812 report from one of Napoleon’s physicians, J.R.L. de Kirckhoff, specifically noted typhus, dysentery, and diarrhea after the soldiers arrived in Vilnius, which he attributed to large barrels of salted beets the starving troops consumed, “greatly upsetting us and strongly irritating the intestinal tract.” Rascovan et al. note that such symptoms could accompany any number of conditions or diseases common to 19th-century Europe. “Even today, two centuries later, it would still be impossible to perform a differential diagnosis between typhus, typhoid, or paratyphoid fever based solely on the symptoms or the testimonies of survivors,” the authors wrote.

Imperial Guard button discovered during excavation. Credit: UMR 6578 Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, EFS

Over 3,200 individual remains, almost all men between the ages of 20 and 50, were excavated from the mass grave at Vilnius. Rascovan et al. focused on 13 teeth from 13 different individuals. To compensate for the degraded nature of the 200-year-old genome fragments, co-authors at the University of Tartu in Estonia helped develop a multistep authentication method to more accurately identify pathogens in the samples. In some cases, they were even able to identify a specific lineage.

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Rocket Report: China tests Falcon 9 lookalike; NASA’s Moon rocket fully stacked

artemis II, blue origin, china, falcon 9, LandSpace, launch, NASA, new glenn, rocket report, Science, Space, space launch system, spacex / Tim Belzer / October 25, 2025

A South Korean rocket startup will soon make its first attempt to reach low-Earth orbit.

The Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission is lowered on top of the Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Welcome to Edition 8.16 of the Rocket Report! The 10th anniversary of SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 rocket landing is coming up at the end of this year. We’re still waiting for a second company to bring back an orbital-class booster from space for a propulsive landing. Two companies, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and China’s LandSpace, could join SpaceX’s exclusive club as soon as next month. (Bezos might claim he’s already part of the club, but there’s a distinction to be made.) Each company is in the final stages of launch preparations—Blue Origin for its second New Glenn rocket, and LandSpace for the debut flight of its Zhuque-3 rocket. Blue Origin and LandSpace will both attempt to land their first stage boosters downrange from their launch sites. They’re not exactly in a race with one another, but it will be fascinating to see how New Glenn and Zhuque-3 perform during the uphill and downhill phases of flight, and whether one or both of the new rockets stick the landing.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

The race for space-based interceptors. The Trump administration’s announcement of the Golden Dome missile defense shield has set off a race among US companies to develop and test space weapons, some of them on their own dime, Ars reports. One of these companies is a 3-year-old startup named Apex, which announced plans to test a space-based interceptor as soon as next year. Apex’s concept will utilize one of the company’s low-cost satellite platforms outfitted with an “Orbital Magazine” containing multiple interceptors, which will be supplied by an undisclosed third-party partner. The demonstration in low-Earth orbit could launch as soon as June 2026 and will test-fire two interceptors from Apex’s Project Shadow spacecraft. The prototype interceptors could pave the way for operational space-based interceptors to shoot down ballistic missiles. (submitted by biokleen)

Usual suspects … Traditional defense contractors are also getting in the game. Northrop Grumman’s CEO, Kathy Warden, said earlier this year that her company is already testing space-based interceptor components on the ground. This week, Lockheed Martin announced it is on a path to test a space-based interceptor in orbit by 2028. Neither company has discussed as much detail of their plans as Apex revealed this week.

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Lockheed Martin’s latest “New Space” investment. As interest grows in rotating detonation engines for hypersonic flight, a startup specialist in the technology says it will receive backing from Lockheed Martin’s corporate venture capital arm, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The strategic investment by Lockheed Martin Ventures “reflects the potential of Venus’s dual-use technology” in an era of growing defense and space spending, Venus Aerospace said in a statement. Venus said its partnership with Lockheed Martin combines the former’s startup mindset with the latter’s resources and industry expertise. The companies did not announce the value of Lockheed’s investment, but Venus said it has raised $106 million since its founding in 2020. Lockheed Martin Ventures has made similar investments in other rocket startups, including Rocket Lab in 2015.

What’s this actually for? … Houston-based Venus Aerospace completed a high-thrust test flight of its Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) in May from Spaceport America, New Mexico. Rotating detonation engine technology is interesting because it has the potential to significantly increase fuel efficiency in various applications, from Navy carriers to rocket engines, Ars reported earlier this year. The engine works by producing a shockwave with a flow of detonation traveling through a circular channel. The engine harnesses these supersonic detonation waves to generate thrust. “Venus has proven in flight the most efficient rocket engine technology in history,” said Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace. “With support from Lockheed Martin Ventures, we will advance our capabilities to deliver at scale and deploy the engine that will power the next 50 years of defense, space, and commercial high-speed aviation.”

South Korean startup receives permission to fly. Innospace announced on October 20 that it has received South Korea’s first private commercial launch permit from the Korea AeroSpace Administration,” the Chosun Daily reports. Accordingly, Innospace will launch its independently developed “HANBIT-Nano” launch vehicle from a Brazilian launch site as early as late this month. Innospace stated that the launch window for this mission has been set for October 28 through November 28. The launch site is the Alcântara Space Center, operated by the Brazilian Air Force.

Aiming for LEO … This will be the first flight of Innospace’s HANBIT-Nano launch vehicle, standing roughly 72 feet (22 meters) tall with a diameter of 4.6 feet (1.4 meters). The two-stage rocket is powered by hybrid propulsion, consuming a mixture of paraffin and liquid oxygen. For its debut flight, the rocket will target an orbit about 300 kilometers (186 miles) high with a batch of small satellites from customers in South Korea, Brazil, and India. According to Innospace, HANBIT-Nano can lift about 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of payload into orbit.

A new record for rocket reuse. SpaceX’s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida on October 19 set a new record for reusable rockets, Ars reports. It marked the 31st launch of the company’s most-flown Falcon 9 booster. The rocket landed on SpaceX’s recovery ship in the Atlantic Ocean to be returned to Florida for a 32nd flight. Several more rockets in SpaceX’s inventory are nearing their 30th launch. In all, SpaceX has more than 20 Falcon 9 boosters in its fleet on both the East and West Coasts. SpaceX engineers are now certifying the Falcon 9 boosters for up to 40 flights apiece.

10,000 and counting … SpaceX’s two launches last weekend weren’t just noteworthy for Falcon 9 lore. Hours after setting the new booster reuse record, SpaceX deployed a batch of 28 Starlink satellites from a different rocket after lifting off from California. This mission propelled SpaceX’s Starlink program past a notable milestone. With the satellites added to the constellation on Sunday, the company has delivered more than 10,000 mass-produced Starlink spacecraft to low-Earth orbit. The exact figure stands at 10,006 satellites, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who expertly tracks comings and goings between Earth and space. About 8,700 of these Starlink satellites are still in orbit, with SpaceX adding more every week.

China is on the cusp of something big. Launch startup LandSpace is in the final stages of preparations for the first flight of its Zhuque-3 rocket and a potentially landmark mission for China, Space News reports. LandSpace said it completed the first phase of the Zhuque-3 rocket’s inaugural launch campaign this week. The Zhuque-3 is the largest commercial rocket developed to date in China, nearly matching the size and performance of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, with nine first stage engines and a single upper stage engine. One key difference is that the Zhuque-3 burns methane fuel, while Falcon 9’s engines consume kerosene. Most notably, LandSpace will attempt to land the rocket’s first stage booster at a location downrange from the launch site, similar to the way SpaceX lands Falcon 9 boosters on drone ships at sea. Zhuque-3’s first stage will aim for a land-based site in an experiment that could pave the way for LandSpace to reuse rockets in the future.

Testing status … The recent testing at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China included a propellant loading demonstration and a static fire test of the rocket’s first stage engines. Earlier this week, LandSpace integrated the payload fairing on the rocket. The company said it will return the rocket to a nearby facility “for inspection and maintenance in preparation for its upcoming orbital launch and first stage recovery.” The launch is expected to happen as soon as next month.

Uprated Ariane 6 won’t launch until next year. Arianespace has confirmed that the first flight of the more powerful, four-booster variant of the Ariane 6 rocket will not be launched until 2026, European Spaceflight reports. The first Ariane 64 rocket had been expected to launch in late 2025, carrying the first batch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites. On October 16, Arianespace announced the fourth and final Ariane 6 flight of the year would carry a pair of Galileo satellites for Europe’s global satellite navigation system in December. This will follow an already-scheduled Ariane 6 launch scheduled for November 4. Both of the upcoming flights will employ the same Ariane 6 configuration used on all of the rocket’s flights to date. This version, known as Ariane 62, has two strap-on solid rocket boosters.

Kuiper soon … The Ariane 64 variant will expose the rocket to stronger forces coming from four solid rocket boosters, each producing about a million pounds (4,500 kilonewtons) of thrust. ArianeGroup, the rocket’s manufacturer, said a year ago that it completed qualification of the Ariane 6 upper stage to withstand the stronger launch loads. Arianespace didn’t offer any explanation of the Ariane 64’s delay from this year to next, but it did confirm the uprated rocket will be the company’s first flight of 2026. The mission will be the first of 18 Arianespace flights dedicated to launching Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband satellites, adding Ariane 6 to the mix of rockets deploying the Internet network in low-Earth orbit.

Duffy losing confidence in Starship. NASA acting Administrator Sean Duffy made two television appearances on Monday morning in which he shook up the space agency’s plans to return humans to the Moon, Ars reports. Speaking on Fox News, where the secretary of transportation frequently appears in his acting role as NASA chief, Duffy said SpaceX has fallen behind in developing the Starship vehicle as a lunar lander. Duffy also indirectly acknowledged that NASA’s projected target of a 2027 crewed lunar landing is no longer achievable. Accordingly, he said he intended to expand the competition to develop a lander capable of carrying humans down to the Moon from lunar orbit and back.

The rest of the story … “They’re behind schedule, and so the President wants to make sure we beat the Chinese,” Duffy said of SpaceX. “He wants to get there in his term. So I’m in the process of opening that contract up. I think we’ll see companies like Blue [Origin] get involved, and maybe others. We’re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually lead us back to the Moon first.” The timing of Duffy’s public appearances on Monday seems tailored to influence a fierce, behind-the-scenes battle to hold onto the NASA leadership position. Jared Isaacman, who Trump nominated and then withdrew for the NASA posting, is again under consideration at the White House to become the agency’s next full-time administrator. (submitted by zapman987)

Rocket fully stacked for Artemis II. “The last major hardware component before Artemis II launches early next year has been installed,” NASA’s acting Administrator Sean Duffy posted on X Monday. Over the weekend, ground teams at Kennedy Space Center in Florida hoisted the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission atop its Space Launch System rocket inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. This followed the transfer of the Orion spacecraft to the VAB from a nearby processing facility last week. With Orion installed, the rocket is fully assembled to its complete height of 322 feet (98 meters) tall.

Four months away? … NASA is still officially targeting no earlier than February 5, 2026, for the launch of the Artemis II mission. This will be the first flight of astronauts to the vicinity of the Moon since 1972, and the first glimpse of human spaceflight beyond low-Earth orbit for several generations. Upcoming milestones in the Artemis II launch campaign include a countdown demonstration inside the VAB, where the mission’s four-person crew will take their seats in the Orion spacecraft to simulate what they’ll go through on launch day.

New Glenn staged for rollout. Dave Limp, Blue Origin’s CEO, posted a video this week of the company’s second New Glenn rocket undergoing launch preparations inside a hangar at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket’s first and second stages are now mated together and installed on the transporter erector that will carry them from the hangar to the launch pad. “We will spend the next days on final checkouts and connecting the umbilicals. Stay tuned for rollout and hotfire!” Limp wrote.

“Big step toward launch” … The connection of New Glenn’s stages and integration on the transporter erector marks a “big step toward launch,” Limp wrote. A launch sometime in November is still possible if engineers can get through a smooth test-firing of the rocket’s seven main engines on the launch pad. The rocket will send two NASA spacecraft on a journey to Mars.

China launches clandestine satellite. China launched a Long March 5 rocket Thursday with a classified military satellite heading toward geosynchronous orbit, Space News reports. The satellite is named TJS-20, and the circumstances of the launch—using China’s most powerful operational rocket—suggest TJS-20 could be the next in a line of signals intelligence-gathering missions. The previous satellite of this line, TJS-11, launched in February 2024, also on a Long March 5.

Doing a lot … This launch continued China’s increasing use of the Long March 5 and its sister variant, the Long March 5B. The Long March 5 is expendable, and although we don’t know how much it costs, it can’t be cheap. It is a complex rocket powered by 10 engines on its core stage and four boosters, some burning liquid hydrogen fuel and others burning kerosene. The second stage also has two cryogenically fueled engines. The Long March 5 has now flown 16 times in nine years and seven times within the last two years. The uptick in launches is largely due to China’s use of the Long March 5 to launch satellites for the Guowang megaconstellation.

Next three launches

Oct. 25: Falcon 9 | Starlink 11-12 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 14: 00 UTC

Oct. 26: H3 | HTV-X 1 | Tanegashima Space Center, Japan | 00: 00 UTC

Oct. 26: Long March 3B/E | Unknown Payload | Xichang Satellite Launch Center | 03: 50 UTC

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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