This Simple Salt Fix Makes Batteries Last 10x Longer. Here’s How

BY KING ABDULLAH U. OF SCI. & TECH. (KAUST), AUGUST 5, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/this-simple-salt-fix-makes-batteries-last-10x-longer-heres-how/

A new study shows how sulfate and other salt ions reduce free water to improve the lifespan and performance of aqueous batteries.

 Credit: Heno Hwang

Water was silently sabotaging battery performance until scientists added salt.

By stabilizing the structure of water, sulfate salts stopped harmful chemical reactions and extended battery life by 10x. The fix is simple, scalable, and could reshape green energy storage.

Breakthrough in Aqueous Battery Lifespan

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST; Saudi Arabia) have identified a key molecular issue that has been preventing aqueous rechargeable batteries from becoming a safer and more cost-effective option for storing sustainable energy. Published in Science Advances, their study explains how water inside these batteries can damage performance and shorten lifespan. However, by adding inexpensive salts like zinc sulfate, the researchers were able to dramatically reduce this problem and extend battery life by over ten times.

A major factor that influences how long a battery lasts is the anode, the component where chemical reactions take place to produce and store energy. Unfortunately, certain unwanted chemical reactions, known as parasitic reactions, can damage the anode and shorten the battery’s overall lifespan.
The Water Problem Unveiled

The study reveals that free water molecules play a major role in triggering these harmful reactions. The addition of zinc sulfate helps limit the presence of free water, reducing its ability to degrade the anode.

“Our findings highlight the importance of water structure in battery chemistry, a key parameter that has been previously overlooked,” said KAUST Professor and Chair of the KAUST Center of Excellence for Renewable Energy and Storage Technologies (CREST) Husam Alshareef, the principal investigator leading the study.

What Is “Free Water”?

Free water describes water molecules that are not strongly bonded to other molecules. This state allows free water to engage with more molecules than otherwise, triggering unwanted reactions that consume energy and compromise the anode.

Sulfate was found to stabilize the bonds of free water, acting as what the KAUST team describes as a “water glue,” to change the dynamics of the water molecules that reduces the number of parasitic reactions.

While the bulk of experiments by the KAUST researchers were done on batteries using zinc sulfate, early investigation has shown that sulfate has the same effect on other metal anodes, suggesting the inclusion of sulfate salts into the battery design could be a universal solution for lengthening the lifespan of all aqueous batteries.

Simple, Scalable, and Cost-Effective

“Sulfate salts are cheap, widely available, and chemically stable, making our solution scientifically and economically viable,” said KAUST Research Scientist Yunpei Zhu, who conducted the bulk of the experiments.

Aqueous batteries are gaining significant global attention as a sustainable solution for large-scale energy storage and are projected to exceed a market size of $10 billion by 2030. Unlike lithium batteries, which are often used in electric vehicles, aqueous batteries offer a safer and more sustainable option for integrating renewable energy sources like solar power into electrical grids.

The birth of modern Man

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Ancient Tools Suggest Indonesian 'Hobbits' Had a Mysterious Neighbor

07 Aug. 2025, By C. CASSELLA

https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-tools-suggest-indonesian-hobbits-had-a-mysterious-neighbor

A facial reconstruction of Homo floresiensis.

 (Cicero Moraes/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY SA 4.0)

The ancestors of the ancient 'hobbits' who once lived on the Indonesian island of Flores were not the only early hominins to cross deep ocean barriers more than a million years ago.

A team of archaeologists from Indonesia and Australia has now discovered the tools of a mysterious neighbor who resided on the island of Sulawesi to the north around the same time, if not earlier.

"It's highly unlikely these early hominins had the cognitive capacity (especially the ability for advanced planning) required to invent boats," archaeologist and co-lead of the expedition, Adam Brumm, told ScienceAlert.

"It is more likely that hominins got to Sulawesi by accident, most probably as a result of 'rafting' on natural vegetation mats. It's thought rodents and monkeys made overwater crossings from the Asian mainland to reach Sulawesi in this way."

The seven flaked stones on Sulawesi were found at different depths below ground, but according to the dating of local sandstone and a nearby pig fossil, the tools range in age from 1.04 million years to 1.48 million years.

The size of the hominins on the island of Flores compared to those on neighboring Java, both in Indonesia. Grey is where land used to be in the distant past.

 (University of Wollongong)



If correct, the artifacts could represent the earliest evidence of human activity in Wallacea – a string of mainly Indonesian islands that has separated the Asian and Australian continents for millions of years.

The identity of the isolated toolmakers remains a mystery.

Brumm has been studying early hominins in the region for decades, and he co-led the recent archaeological expedition on Sulawesi with Budianto Hakim from the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN).

Archaeologist Debbie Argue, who was not involved in the discovery, told ScienceAlert the findings are "most important", because they add to the startling fact that early Pleistocene hominins could somehow make sea crossings.

"With evidence for hominins on three islands that have never been attached to a mainland – Flores, Luzon, and now Sulawesi – island Southeast Asia is shaping up to be an extraordinary frontier for human evolution," said Argue.

A stone tool found on Sulawesi.

 (M. W. Moore/University of New England)




Until now, the earliest evidence of stone tools in Wallacea – which are thought to be 1.02 million years old – came from the island of Flores.

Flores is the same place where archaeologists discovered the short-statured Homo floresiensis – also known as the 'hobbit' – in a cave in 2003. This meter-high hominin (3.3 feet) with a brain the size of grapefruit took the world by surprise when it was found, because it didn't look like any other early human.

The remains of H. floresiensis date up to 100,000 years ago, but its presumed ancestors on the island date back 700,000 years. The 1.02 million-year-old stone tools on Flores were probably made by those ancestors – whether descended from Homo erectus or another hominin species on the Asian mainland.

According to a 2021 interview with archaeologist Lucy Timbrell, Brumm accidentally happened upon the Flores tools while "nursing an appalling hangover" due to a local village ceremony the night before.

"Whilst stumbling about in the sweltering heat, in a bewildered state, I found some heavily patinated stone tools eroding out from a fluvial conglomerate exposed at the base of a gully," Brumm recalled in the interview.

"I have since tried to make major archaeological discoveries while hungover, but it only worked that one time."

The collection of stone tools found on Sulawesi.

 (M.W. Moore/University of New England)

Archaeologists have yet to uncover hominin fossils on Sulawesi, but the evidence of stone tools indicates their existence.

It's unknown if the Sulawesi population was related to hominins on Flores, but the late Mike Morwood, one of the co-discoverers of the 2003 'hobbit', was convinced that Sulawesi was the key to understanding where H. floresiensis came from.

"We had always suspected that hominins were established on Sulawesi for a very long period of time, but until now we had never found clear evidence," Brumm told ScienceAlert.

Influenced by Morwood's thinking, Brumm suspects that Sulawesi was once a stepping stone to Flores from mainland Asia (which once stretched as far as Java and Borneo).

In 2010, Morwood told The Guardian that he suspected tools on Sulawesi could date back two million years. "This is going to put the cat among the pigeons," he said at the time.

No doubt he would have been thrilled by the recent work of Brumm's and Hakim's team.

The archaeologists now plan to search Sulawesi for direct remains of the mysterious tool makers.

"We are also working at much younger sites that we hope will provide insight into what happened to these early humans when our species arrived on the island at least 65,000 years ago," said Brumm.

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Scientists Discover the Explosive Chain Reaction That Triggers Lightning

BY M. LUCAS, PENN STATE, AUG. 6, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-the-explosive-chain-reaction-that-triggers-lightning/

Scientists have uncovered how lightning really begins: with invisible particle avalanches and cosmic rays triggering a silent chain reaction inside storm clouds.

 Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Lightning may look like a sudden burst from the clouds, but its true origin lies in an invisible storm of cosmic rays, X-rays, and high-energy electrons.

A breakthrough study led by Penn State researchers has finally decoded this hidden process: when cosmic rays strike thunderclouds, they trigger avalanches of particles and bursts of radiation that ignite lightning from within. This chain reaction, known as photoelectric feedback, happens in eerie silence, often without light or sound, before the bolt ever strikes.

How Lightning Begins: Cracking a Centuries-Old Mystery

For decades, scientists have understood the mechanics of a lightning strike, but exactly what sets it off inside thunderclouds remained a lingering mystery. That mystery may now be solved. A research team led by Victor Pasko, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has identified the powerful chain of events responsible for triggering lightning.

In a study published July 28 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the researchers explained how intense electric fields within thunderclouds accelerate electrons. These fast-moving electrons collide with molecules such as nitrogen and oxygen, generating X-rays and sparking a rapid surge of new electrons and high-energy photons. This chain reaction creates the ideal conditions for a lightning bolt to form.

Connecting the Physics: X-Rays, Electric Fields, and Avalanches

“Our findings provide the first precise, quantitative explanation for how lightning initiates in nature,” Pasko said. “It connects the dots between X-rays, electric fields, and the physics of electron avalanches.”

To validate their explanation, the team used mathematical modeling to simulate atmospheric events that match what scientists have observed in the field. These observations involve photoelectric processes in Earth’s atmosphere, where high-energy electrons—triggered by cosmic rays from space—multiply within the electric fields of thunderstorms and release short bursts of high-energy photons. This process, known as a terrestrial gamma-ray flash, consists of invisible but naturally occurring bursts of X-rays and associated radio signals.

“By simulating conditions with our model that replicated the conditions observed in the field, we offered a complete explanation for the X-rays and radio emissions that are present within thunderclouds,” Pasko said. “We demonstrated how electrons, accelerated by strong electric fields in thunderclouds, produce X-rays as they collide with air molecules like nitrogen and oxygen, and create an avalanche of electrons that produce high-energy photons that initiate lightning.”

Matching Models to Field Observations

Zaid Pervez, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, used the model to match field observations — collected by other research groups using ground-based sensors, satellites, and high-altitude spy planes — to the conditions in the simulated thunderclouds.

“We explained how photoelectric events occur, what conditions need to be in thunderclouds to initiate the cascade of electrons, and what is causing the wide variety of radio signals that we observe in clouds all prior to a lightning strike,” Pervez said. “To confirm our explanation on lightning initiation, I compared our results to previous modeling, observation studies and my own work on a type of lightning called compact intercloud discharges, which usually occur in small, localized regions in thunderclouds.”

Published by Pasko and his collaborators in 2023, the model, Photoelectric Feedback Discharge, simulates physical conditions in which a lightning bolt is likely to originate. The equations used to create the model are available in the paper for other researchers to use in their own work.

Victor Pasko, left, professor of electrical engineering in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Zaid Pervez, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, revealed the powerful chain reaction that triggers lightning. 

Credit: Caleb Craig / Penn State




Gamma-Ray Flashes Without the Flash

In addition to uncovering lightning initiation, the researchers explained why terrestrial gamma-ray flashes are often produced without flashes of light and radio bursts, which are familiar signatures of lightning during stormy weather.

“In our modeling, the high-energy X-rays produced by relativistic electron avalanches generate new seed electrons driven by the photoelectric effect in air, rapidly amplifying these avalanches,” Pasko said. “In addition to being produced in very compact volumes, this runaway chain reaction can occur with highly variable strength, often leading to detectable levels of X-rays, while accompanied by very weak optical and radio emissions. This explains why these gamma-ray flashes can emerge from source regions that appear optically dim and radio silent.”


In addition to Pasko and Pervez, the co-authors include Sebastien Celestin, professor of physics at the University of Orléans, France; Anne Bourdon, director of research at École Polytechnique, France; Reza Janalizadeh, ionosphere scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and former postdoctoral scholar under Pasko at Penn State; Jaroslav Jansky, assistant professor of electrical engineering and communication at Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic; and Pierre Gourbin, postdoctoral scholar of astrophysics and atmospheric physics at the Technical University of Denmark.

The U.S. National Science Foundation, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the Institut Universitaire de France and the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic supported this research.

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Switching Off For a Moment Lets Your Brain Do Something Wonderful

06 August 2025, By A. KENYON, THE CONVERSATION

https://www.sciencealert.com/switching-off-for-a-moment-lets-your-brain-do-something-wonderful

(Yasser Chalid/Getty Images)

Every day, we're faced with constant opportunities for stimulation. With 24/7 access to news feeds, emails and social media, many of us find ourselves scrolling endlessly, chasing our next hit of dopamine.

But these habits are fueling our stress – and our brains are begging for a break.

What our brains really need is some much needed time off from concentrating. By not consciously focusing on anything and allowing the mind to drift, this can reduce stress and improve cognitive sharpness.

This can often be easier said than done. But attention restoration theory (Art) can help you learn to give your brain space to drift. While this might sound like a fancy name for doing nothing, the theory is supported by neuroscience.

Attention restoration theory was first put forward by psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in 1989. They theorised that spending time in nature can help to restore focus and attention.

Many of us have grown used to filling every moment of our day with distraction. (Oleh_Slobodeniuk/E+/Getty Images)



They proposed there are two distinct types of attention: directed attention and undirected attention. Directed attention refers to deliberate concentration – such as studying, navigating through a busy place or posting on social media. Basically, it's any activity where our brain's attention is being directed at a specific task.

Undirected attention is when we're not consciously trying to focus on anything – instead allowing things to gently capture our attention without trying. Think listening to chirping birds or watching leaves gently rustling in the breeze. In these instances, your attention naturally drifts without having to force your focus.

Without time for undirected attention, it's thought that we experience "attentional fatigue". This can make it increasingly difficult to focus and concentrate, while distractions become more likely to grab our attention.

In the past, we encountered many situations in our daily lives that we might classify as "boring". Moments such as waiting for the bus or standing in the supermarket queue.

But these dull moments also gave our minds a chance to switch off.

Now, our smartphones give us the opportunity for constant entertainment. Being able to constantly expose ourselves to intense, gripping stimuli offers little mental space for our overworked brains to recover.

But attention restoration theory shows us how important it is to create space for moments that allow our brains to "reset".

The default mode network in our brains (highlighted) shifts our attention towards self-reflection when we're bored.

 (John Graner/Wikipedia)

Restoring attention

The origins of Kaplan and Kaplan's theory can actually be traced back to the 19th century. American psychologist William James was the first to formulate the concept of "voluntary attention" – attention that requires effort.

James' ideas were published against the backdrop of the broader cultural movement of Romanticism, which lauded nature.

Romantic ideas about the restorative power of nature have since been backed by research – with numerous studies showing links between time in nature and lower stress levels, better attention, improvements in mental health, mood and better cognitive function.

The restorative benefits of nature are backed by neuroscience, too. Neuroimaging has shown that activity in the amygdala – the part of the brain associated with stress and anxiety – was reduced when people were exposed to natural environments. But when exposed to urban environments, this activity was not reduced.

Numerous studies have also since backed up Kaplan and Kaplan's theory that time in nature can help to restore attention and wellbeing. One systematic review of 42 studies found an association with exposure to natural environments and improvements in several aspects of cognitive performance – including attention.

A randomised controlled trial using neuroimaging of the brain found signs of lower stress levels in adults who took a 40-minute walk in a natural environment, compared to participants who walked in an urban environment. The authors concluded that the nature walk facilitated attention restoration.

Research has even shown that as little as ten minutes of undirected attention can result in a measurable uptick in performance on cognitive tests, as well as a reduction in attentional fatigue. Even simply walking on a treadmill while looking at a nature scene can produce this cognitive effect.

Time in nature

There are many ways you can put attention restoration theory to the test on your own. First, find any kind of green space – whether that's your local park, a river you can sit beside or a forest trail you can hike along.

Next, make sure you put your phone and any other distractions away.

Or, when you face boring moments during your day, instead of picking up your phone try seeing the pause as an opportunity to let your mind wander for a bit.

Each of us may find certain environments to be more naturally supportive in allowing us to switch off and disengage the mind.

So if while trying to put attention restoration theory into practice you find your brain pulling you back to structured tasks (such as mentally planning your week), this may be sign you should go someplace where it's easier for your mind to wander.

Whether you're watching a ladybird crawl across your desk or visiting a vast expanse of nature, allow your attention to be undirected. It's not laziness, it's neurological maintenance.

The Life of Earth

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Earth Spun Faster Today. Here's How We Know.

06 Aug. 2025, By J. O'DONOGHUE, THE CONVERSATION

https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-spun-faster-today-heres-how-we-know

Hold on!

 (emarto/Getty Images)

Earth will complete a rotation 1.33 milliseconds earlier than usual on Tuesday, August 5. That makes it one of the shortest days of 2025 at 86,399.99867 seconds long.

How that happens, and how we can even measure it with such precision, might make your head spin faster too.

On average, Earth physically rotates in 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds and 90.5 milliseconds – this is called a sidereal day. It is Earth's 'true' rotation relative to distant objects in deep space, like stars.

However, the kind of day most people go by is 24 hours long and that is called a solar day – it's the time between two sunrises, or consecutive noons. The extra 4 minutes comes from the fact that Earth has to rotate 1 more degree, to 361 degrees, for the Sun to appear in the same place again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWw4JY2dNXM

Both kinds of day are slightly shorter on August 5 2025, largely due to what is happening with winds in Earth's atmosphere, fluid circulation in the ocean and magma – and even the Moon's gravitational pull.

Deviations from 24 hours have been accurately measured since the 1970s using atomic clocks and astronomy.

Over the course of a year, these changes build up: in 1973, for example, the sum of deviations added up to +1,106 milliseconds, meaning that the Earth lagged behind in its rotation by just over a second. Leap seconds were introduced in the same year to correct for this, with one second added to the clock at the end of the day – 23:59:60.

Absurd levels of accuracy are needed in time-keeping. Global positioning systems (more commonly called GPS) can pinpoint where you are in space, that's no problem. But if the planetary surface you are on has physically spun slightly faster or slower than expected that day, an uncorrected GPS won't know that, and your position won't match with your map.

A 1.33 millisecond deviation translates to a position error of about 62 cm at the equator, so 1973's cumulative drift would have caused GPS errors of around half a kilometre if left uncorrected over the year.

Why doesn't the Earth stay still?

To find out how fast the Earth is spinning at all, you need to find a reference frame in which, ideally, nothing is moving. Everything in space moves relative to everything else, but the farther we look, the more still things seem; just as distant hills appear to move slower while you're on a train, and nearby farms rush by.

Luckily, there are objects so magnificently bright that they outshine entire galaxies. These are quasars, and they are visible across the universe from billions of light years away.

Quasars are supermassive blackholes up to billions of times the mass of our Sun, which emit between 100 and 10,000 times more light than our entire galaxy, the Milky Way. Quasars are detectable from billions of light years across the universe, where things are essentially stationary, so they act as cosmic beacons.

Radio telescopes measure our position relative to these, yielding values of Earth's true rotation period to sub-millisecond accuracy.

Those ultra‑precise observations are also the starting point for computer models which include movements of the atmosphere, oceans, celestial motions and more to predict the length of day. This is how we know, in advance, when a day is shorter, and how to correct GPS as a result.

Winds in Earth's atmosphere are the biggest influence on the length of each day as a result of their collisions with the land surface, particularly when they hit mountain ranges. Incredible as it may sound, wind actually slows the spin of the Earth this way.

Earth's prevailing winds are fastest in the northern hemisphere winter, but slowest from June to August, so the summer months always bring the shortest days of the year (even though we tend to say these are the "longest" days in the northern hemisphere, because of their greater daylight duration).

These daily and seasonal changes are just short‑lived blips atop broader slowdowns. Over decades, the melting of the polar ice caps has been slowing the Earth's rotation. To understand why, consider a spinning ballerina retracting their outstretched arms – they begin to spin much faster. A spinning ball, like Earth, is no different.

Earth is oblate, meaning the surface at the equator is 21.5 km farther from the centre of the planet than the surface at the poles. As climate change melts the polar ice caps, meltwater moves from the poles to the equator via the ocean. Rising sea levels mean water is farther from the surface, and just like the ballerina moving their arms back out, it aids Earth's slowdown. Redistribution of Earth's mass changes our rotation in similar ways, including by earthquakes.

Historical deviation of day length from the 24-hour day (86,400 seconds). 

(Ⅱ Ⅶ Ⅻ/International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service)

The Moon, while beautiful, can be a huge drag over billions of years. Earth's oceans are raised by the Moon's gravity, but as the Earth rotates, the raised oceans are carried slightly ahead of the Moon in its orbit. But the Moon continues pulling on those oceans, dragging them backwards against the Earth's anticlockwise rotation, which slows us down.

Earth's rotational energy isn't lost, it's transferred to the Moon, which gains orbital speed and causes it to escape Earth's gravity a little better – this is why it's moving away from us at 3.8 cm a year. Our length of day has increased from 17 hours 2.5 billion years ago largely due to the Moon sapping Earth's angular momentum over the eons.

Earth's rotation has slowed every year from 1973 to 2020 (where precise measurements exist), with each year accumulating hundreds of milliseconds of lag, which has already been accounted for by adding 27 leap seconds.

Things changed from 2020 – the Earth started spinning faster instead of slower every year, probably the result of angular momentum exchange between the Earth's core and mantle, but modulated by the numerous other motions we've explored.

July 5, July 22 and August 5 were singled out as some of this year's fastest days far in advance, because on top of the Earth's internal motions and seasonal quirks in atmospheric winds, the Moon's position in orbit also slows the Earth twice per orbit (every two weeks).

This is because when the Moon is directly above the equator, all of its tidal drag acts east to west, but on these dates, it is positioned farthest north and south, weakening that effect.

You won't notice the sunrise arrive 1.33 milliseconds sooner, but to precision atomic clocks, quasar‐referenced astronomical measurements, it will be obvious.

The Life of Earth

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300,000-year-old teeth from China may be evidence that humans and Homo erectus interbred, according to new study

By Kristina Killgrove published Aug. 5, 2025

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/300-000-year-old-teeth-from-china-may-be-evidence-that-humans-and-homo-erectus-interbred-according-to-new-study

Fossil teeth from Hualongdong show a mix of ancient and modern traits. 

(Image credit: X. Wu et al. / Journal of Human Evolution)

A study of a handful of 300,000-year-old teeth revealed an ancient human group had a mix of archaic and modern tooth features.

A small collection of 21 teeth may have big implications for the evolution of humans in Asia. The dentition, which comes from a mystery human ancestor that lived at least 300,000 years ago in China, shows an unusual combination of features that may suggest early humans interbred with Homo erectus, a new study reveals.

"It's a mosaic of … traits never seen before — almost as if the evolutionary clock were ticking at different speeds in different parts of the body," study co-author María Martinón-Torres, a paleoanthropologist at the Spanish National Research Center for Human Evolution (CENIEH), said in a statement.

In a study published in the September issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers studied a handful of teeth from the Hualongdong archaeological site in South China and found that they had a mixture of ancient and modern traits.

The teeth belonged to the Hualongdong people, a mysterious group of hominins discovered in 2006. They lived during the Middle Pleistocene epoch around 300,000 years ago. Researchers have found at least 16 individuals to date.

An early analysis of the skeletons suggested they might have been a form of East Asian H. erectus, which reached China by 1.7 million years ago. But a more recent analysis showed that the bones and teeth of the Hualongdong people had a mix of traits typically seen in Homo sapiens and H. erectus. Specifically, Hualongdong people had facial features more similar to humans but limb proportions more often seen in H. erectus.

The new study similarly revealed a mix of traits in the teeth of the Hualongdong people. Most of the dental features appeared modern, including the small size of the wisdom teeth. But the roots of the molars were quite thick and robust, more similar to those found in H. erectus.

Researchers aren't sure why the Hualongdong teeth look like this, since paleoanthropologists are still piecing together the evolutionary history of humans in China, but they suggested several ideas in the study.

One possible explanation is that the Hualongdong population was closely related to H. sapiens but distinct from Neanderthals and Denisovans, both archaic populations of humans that interbred with some of our ancestors.

Another possibility is that the bones and teeth of the Hualongdong people "could be the result of genetic drift or gene flow with a more archaic form, such as Homo erectus," the researchers wrote in the study. Essentially, the Hualongdong population could be the result of H. erectus and humans having babies or could have come about because of another change in their genetic makeup.

Human ancestors from the Middle Pleistocene epoch are being discovered and analyzed at a rapid pace, paving the way for a better understanding of human origins in Asia.

In 2019, the diminutive species Homo luzonensis was found in the Philippines; in 2021, a newfound species called H. longi was identified in northern China (although the specimen was later found to be a Denisovan); and in 2024, the discovery of Homo juluensis from China was announced. All of these newly identified species of ancient humans date to around 300,000 to 150,000 years ago, and paleoanthropologists are only just beginning to understand how they are all related.

"The Hualongdong discovery reminds us that human evolution was neither linear nor uniform, and that Asia hosted multiple evolutionary experiments with unique anatomical outcomes," study co-author José María Bermúdez de Castro, a paleobiologist at CENIEH, said in the statement.

The birth of modern Man

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DNA Casts Doubt Over Theory on What Killed Napoleon's Forces

05 August 2025, By T. KOUMOUNDOUROS

https://www.sciencealert.com/dna-casts-doubt-over-theory-on-what-killed-napoleons-forces

Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. 

(Adolph Northern)

When Napoleon and his legion of multinational soldiers retreated from Russia in 1812 in the face of dwindling supplies and fierce Russian resistance, little did they know how much worse was yet to come.

While withdrawing from Russia, at least half of the 600,000-strong force were ravaged by the extremes of winter, starvation, and disease. A new study that has yet to be peer reviewed has now identified which pathogens helped decimate the weakened forces.


Physicians at the time documented typhus, with symptoms that include fevers, headaches, and rashes. But Paris Cité University microbiologist Rémi Barbieri and colleagues found no traces of the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii, which would have been responsible for the disease.

After extracting and analyzing ancient DNA from the teeth of 13 soldiers they instead found evidence the men suffered from a combination of paratyphoid caused by a strain of Salmonella enterica, and a relapsing fever caused by a bacterium called Borrelia recurrentis, which is transmitted by body lice .

"While not necessarily fatal, the louse-borne relapsing fever could significantly weaken an already exhausted individual," the researchers explain in their paper.

The Retreat of Napoleon's Army from Russia in 1812.

 (Ary Scheffer)

Barbieri and team caution that just because their analysis did not detect typhus doesn't mean it didn't contribute to the infamous loss of soldiers, as they only took samples from 13 individuals. Over 3,000 bodies lie in the mass graves found in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2001.

Other researchers have pointed out several diseases match the historical accounting of symptoms, including typhus.

Many of the men were buried in their uniforms and with horses, too. The lack of weapons suggests these people did not die in battle, Barbieri and his team explain.

"The analysis of a larger number of samples will be necessary to fully understand the spectrum of epidemic diseases that impacted the Napoleonic army during the Russian retreat," they write.

"In light of our results, a reasonable scenario for the deaths of these soldiers would be a combination of fatigue, cold, and several diseases, including paratyphoid fever and louse-borne relapsing fever."

The Life of Earth

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Why Your Gut Hasn’t Been the Same Since COVID

BY AMERICAN GASTROENTEROLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, AUG. 4, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/why-your-gut-hasnt-been-the-same-since-covid/

IBS and gut issues are rising fast after COVID, and scientists believe long COVID may be fueling the gut-brain chaos. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A major international study has revealed a troubling surge in gut-brain disorders like IBS and functional dyspepsia since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using consistent diagnostic tools to compare pre- and post-pandemic populations, researchers found that these conditions are now significantly more common—especially among people with long COVID, who also report higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Pandemic-Driven Surge in Gut-Brain Disorders

A recent global study has identified a notable increase in gut-brain interaction disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and functional dyspepsia, following the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings were published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

To explore this trend, researchers expanded on earlier work by applying Rome Foundation diagnostic criteria to nationally representative data sets collected in both 2017 and 2023. This approach provided the first direct, population-wide comparison of gut-brain disorder rates before and after the pandemic.

Individuals with disorders of the gut-brain interaction before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Credit: CGH

Key Findings: 

Overall disorders of gut-brain interaction rose from 38.3% to 42.6%.

IBS jumped 28%, from 4.7% to 6%.

Functional dyspepsia rose by nearly 44%, from 8.3% to 11.9%.

Individuals with long COVID were significantly more likely to have a disorder of gut-brain interaction and reported worse anxiety, depression, and quality of life.

A Wake-Up Call for Gut-Brain Research

This is the first population-level study to directly compare rates of disorders affecting gut-brain interaction before and after the pandemic, using a consistent methodology. It adds weight to growing calls for updated care models and more research into the gut-brain axis in the post-COVID era.

Functional dyspepsia is a common digestive disorder that causes chronic upper abdominal discomfort or pain without an identifiable medical cause. Symptoms often include bloating, early fullness during meals, nausea, and burning or aching in the stomach area. Unlike ulcers or reflux disease, functional dyspepsia doesn’t show visible signs of damage in the digestive tract during medical exams.

The birth of modern Man

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Chuck's picture corner to Aug. 5, 2025

It's been another week of promised rain that doesn't fall. Nights have been quite cools and days in the high 20 Cs.

Lobelia has such a pretty blue.

alstroemeria has gone rampant this year

a gift years ago that just keeps on giving

this tree is growing sideways

black wall nuts

Walking the dog.

The tomatoes are swelling.

We used these in our spaghetti sauce last night. Along with garden grown, oregano, thyme, parsley, sage, and basil.

looking good for chili this fall.

thistle, a medicinal plant for Rachelle

The yellow is poison parsnip, nasty stuff if you get some on your skin, sunshine activated, the white flower is queen Anne's lace a common local weed.

Such a great colour.

Enjoy summers dog days

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Wild snow in Australia

Published on Aug. 3, 2025, (Reporting by Peter Hobson in Canberra; Editing by William Mallard)
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/severe/australian-towns-blanketed-with-rare-snow-in-wild-weather-armidale-new-south-wale-queensland

A cold air front dropped as much as 40 cm (16 inches) of snow on parts of northern New South Wales on Saturday, the most since the mid-1980s. Snow also settled in areas of the neighbouring state of Queensland for the first time in 10 years.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Several towns in eastern Australia were blanketed with their thickest layer of snow in decades as wild weather swept the area this weekend, causing floods, stranding vehicles and cutting power to thousands of homes, authorities said.

A cold air front dropped as much as 40 cm (16 inches) of snow on parts of northern New South Wales on Saturday, the most since the mid-1980s, said Miriam Bradbury, a meteorologist at Australia's weather bureau.

Snow also settled in areas of the neighbouring state of Queensland for the first time in 10 years, she said.

Bradbury said climate change has made Australia's weather more volatile in recent years but that this sort of event had occurred several times in the historical record.

Snow blankets the grass at a Golf Club, in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia, August 2, 2025, in this

 screengrab obtained from social media video. Armidale Golf Club/via REUTERS

"What makes this event unusual is how much snow we had but also how widespread, covering quite a large part of the northern tablelands," she said.

With heavy rain lashing other areas, the New South Wales State Emergency Service said it had responded to more than 1,455 incidents. It said more than 100 vehicles had been stranded by snow, storms had damaged buildings and it had issued several major flood warnings.

Tens of thousands of homes spent the night without power, state broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.

Police in New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, said a car had become stuck in floodwater on Saturday evening and a female passenger in her 20s was swept away. The search was continuing on Sunday, they said.

The Life of Earth

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Lightning Kills Way More Trees Than You Would Ever Believe

04 August 2025, By I. FARKAS

https://www.sciencealert.com/lightning-kills-way-more-trees-than-you-would-ever-believe

Direct lightning strikes kill millions of trees annually. 

(Allan Davey/Moment/Getty Images)

A first-of-its-kind study estimates that lightning strikes kill 320 million trees every year.

For perspective, these dead trees account for up to 2.9 percent of annual loss in plant biomass and emit up to 1.09 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

Even more striking (pun unintended), the study includes only tree deaths caused directly by lightning. It does not include tree deaths caused indirectly by lightning-induced wildfires. Altogether, these findings can improve statistical models that help researchers study forest structure and carbon storage on a worldwide scale.

Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) ascertained these figures using novel mathematical models, which offer an unprecedented overview of how lightning-induced tree mortality impacts the global ecosystem.

Classifying tree mortality was no easy task. Dead trees often lack clear visual signs of their cause of death, while others may be too decomposed for meaningful forest forensics.

Some tree deaths occur slowly, and most surveys are limited to infrequent observations of isolated deaths after the event has occurred. Some areas, like temperate and boreal forests, are not as well-studied as those in the tropics.

So the researchers combined multiple methods to make their global estimate, including using results from another team's camera-based lightning detection system in an old-growth tropical forest in Panama's Barro Colorado Island (BCI). These camera observations were followed up with drone and ground surveys to confirm lightning-struck trees.

This BCI data revealed that lightning is highly contagious. A lightning strike can cause a 'flashover' as electricity crosses the air gap between the crowns of neighboring trees, reaching as far away as 45 meters (almost 150 feet) from the initially struck tree. As a result, each lightning strike killed 3.5 trees on average.

Testing their model against the real data, they found their model adequately simulated the trees killed by lightning strike.

Average lighting-induced mortality rates for different tree sizes and distances from initial lighting strike. 

(Krause et al., Global Change Biology, 2025)

The researchers then applied the validated model to other temperate and tropical forests around the world. To pad out the global averages, the researchers also incorporated two hefty datasets of lightning frequency and density, one from a spaceborne optical network and the second from ground-based observations.

Cloud-to-ground lightning densities based on two different lightning detection datasets/networks implemented in the study's mathematical models to estimate global lightning-based tree mortality. 

(Krause et al., Global Change Biology, 2025)

According to the simulations, "286–328 million lightning strikes hit the Earth's surface each year," with the majority occurring over ice-free land areas, particularly in the tropics. This resulted in the annual death of 301-340 million trees over the 2004-2023 period, including 24-36 million large trees (over 60 centimeters in diameter).

For comparison, natural causes kill around 50 billion trees annually, occasionally creating 'farting' ghost forests. So while lightning is only responsible for 0.69 percent tree deaths overall, it is responsible for up to 6.3 percent of large-tree deaths.

Observed lightning strikes compared to simulated lightning strikes in LPJ-GUESS.

 (Krause et al., Global Change Biology, 2025)

Additionally, these numbers appear to be rising.

"Currently, lightning-induced tree mortality is highest in tropical regions," says Andreas Krause, a computer scientist at TUM's Land Surface-Atmosphere Interactions lab and the study's lead author.

"However, models suggest that lightning frequency will increase primarily in middle-and-high-latitude regions, meaning that lightning mortality could also become more relevant in temperate and boreal forests."

The impact may be significant; a separate study predicts a 9-18 percent uptick in large-tree deaths for a 25-50 percent increase in lightning frequency.

Most importantly, the study provides evidence that lightning-induced tree deaths are underestimated – if estimated at all. The researchers note that tree mortality is a neglected aspect in the dynamic models that scientists use to study how forests respond to environmental shifts, and should be included in future carbon calculations.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Cosmic Rays Could Help Aliens Thrive in The Barren Wastelands of Space

03 August 2025, By M. IRVING

https://www.sciencealert.com/cosmic-rays-could-help-aliens-thrive-in-the-barren-wastelands-of-space

An artist's impression of a supernova explosion, a major source of high-energy cosmic rays. (NASA/GSFC/Dana Berry)

Too much cosmic radiation can sterilize a planet – but a surprising new study has found that under the right circumstances, it could actually make uninhabitable worlds habitable.

Ionizing radiation has enough energy to damage the organic compounds that are fundamental to biology, which for organisms like us can lead to health problems like cancer. Not only does this include ultraviolet light from the Sun and X-rays and gamma rays from further afield, but high-speed particles making up cosmic rays are also notable for blasting away at biochemistry.

Here on Earth, we're protected from the worst of it all by our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere. It's usually assumed that without these kinds of defenses, life wouldn't stand a chance.

But the new study suggests that life could not only survive ionizing radiation, but depend on it. The idea is that high-energy particles from space could knock electrons out of molecules in underground water or ice, in a process called radiolysis. Hypothetically, this could produce enough energy to feed microbes even in cold, dark environments.

Saturn's moon, Enceladus.

 (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)



The researchers ran simulations of radiolysis at work in key locations in the Solar System to figure out how much energy it could potentially produce. By their calculations, Saturn's moon Enceladus is the cosiest home for aliens, followed by Mars and then Jupiter's moon Europa.

The study has major implications for how common life could be throughout the cosmos.

"This discovery changes the way we think about where life might exist," says Dimitra Atri, astrobiologist at New York University's Abu Dhabi campus.

"Instead of looking only for warm planets with sunlight, we can now consider places that are cold and dark, as long as they have some water beneath the surface and are exposed to cosmic rays. Life might be able to survive in more places than we ever imagined."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Earth, Mars, Venus — and a long-lost planet — may have once 'waltzed' in perfect harmony around the sun

By A. Jain published Aug. 2, 2025

https://www.livescience.com/space/planets/earth-mars-venus-and-a-long-lost-planet-may-have-once-waltzed-in-perfect-harmony-around-the-sun

New research suggests that most of the solar system's inner rocky planets once orbited the sun in perfect harmony.

(Image credit: SCIEPRO/Getty Images)

New simulations suggest that up to four of the solar system's rocky planets, including Earth and a long-lost world, once orbited in mathematical harmony around the infant sun.

Four of the solar system's terrestrial planets, including Earth and a long-lost world, likely started life waltzing around the sun to a fixed rhythm, according to a new study. The findings also suggest that those planets formed earlier than previously thought.

Astronomers have been increasingly interested in how planetary systems change their internal architecture on cosmic timescales, motivated by several recent exoplanet family discoveries, like the seven-planet cohort orbiting the tiny star TRAPPIST-1.

Past research has found that one early stage in a planetary family's metamorphosis involves pairs, triplets or entire systems moving in a rhythmic beat — called resonance — around their parent star. Planets in resonance have orbital periods that form a whole-number ratio. In the TRAPPIST-1 system, for instance, the innermost planet, TRAPPIST-1 b, completes eight orbits for five of its nearest neighbor's.

Resonance arises among planets born within a protoplanetary disk — the disk of debris surrounding an infant star — that still contains gas. Such planets plow through the gas, exchanging their rotational motion with it, which often causes them to move toward the star. Many of these planets may come close enough to each other for their orbital periods to "resonate," or become whole-number multiples.

Today, the solar system's planets aren't in resonance (although Venus and Mars come close, with an orbital-period ratio of 3.05:1). But in 2005, astronomers showed that Jupiter and Saturn waltzed in a resonant beat soon after their birth. This dance halted abruptly 4.4 billion years ago, however, when the protoplanetary gas disk started evaporating, pushing Saturn, Uranus and Neptune outward in an event called the giant planetary instability.

Until now, though, nobody had examined whether the terrestrial planets have ever been in resonance, Chris Ormel, an associate professor at Tsinghua University in China and co-author of the new study, told Live Science by email. This was because "an alternative theory — that the planets formed by a series of giant impacts — was thought to be adequate" to explain how they currently behave, he said.

Planets are in resonance with one another when the ratio between their orbits forms whole numbers, such as 2:1 or 3:1. 

(Image credit: Steve Allen/Getty Images)



But research from 2013 analyzing Martian isotopes suggested that terrestrial planets could have formed when the protoplanetary disk was still rich in gas, about 10 million years after the solar system's birth. This meant the terrestrial planets may have once been in resonance.

To examine the hypothesis, the new study's authors created computer models of the infant solar system. Each model included two giant planets — Jupiter and Saturn — along with four rocky worlds: Mars, Theia (a hypothetical Mars-size object whose collision with early Earth formed our moon), early Earth (prior to Theia’s collision) and Venus. Mercury is widely believed to have been created by giant impacts, so the researchers excluded it from the simulations.

In all of the models, the team placed Saturn closer to Jupiter than it is today and had the rocky worlds grow by accumulating either pebbles or larger, trillion-ton rock blocks. In most simulations, Venus, Earth, Theia and Mars formed a 2:3:4:6 resonant chain within a million years of simulated time.

The researchers then performed 13,200 simulations of the planets' potential movements over a 100-million-year interval, considering the gravitational tugs each planet exerted on the others. At the 10 million-year mark, however, the researchers made Saturn move outward "to simulate the giant planet instability," Shuo Huang, a doctoral student at Tsinghua University and the study's first author, told Live Science by email.

The researchers found that, based on the selected parameters, up to half of the simulations re-created the terrestrial planets' current configuration. This included aspects like the occurrence of a single Theia-Earth collision and the 3.05:1 orbital-period ratio of Venus and Mars — a relic of their past resonance.

Theia was a terrestrial planet that smashed into Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, leading to the formation of the moon. 

(Image credit: Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images)



Additionally, the findings suggest the planets formed in the gas-filled protoplanetary disk, within the first 10 million years of the solar system's creation, which is at least 20 million years older than current models predict.

One planet that could confirm how old the rocky inner worlds are is Venus. Because it (unlike Earth and Mars) hasn't suffered any giant impacts, the authors think its mantle will reflect its ancient origin. And future missions could collect such mantle samples, Huang said.

The findings also indicate that outer giant planets can destabilize their inner companions tremendously. The authors said this may explain why resonant systems like TRAPPIST-1 don't have giant outer planets.

The Life of Earth

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