The Barabar Caves are among the most extraordinary ancient structures ever discovered. Carved from solid granite over 2,200 years ago, their mirror-like interiors remain one of archaeology's greatest mysteries.
How were they made, why were they built, and could we be missing something important about the ancient world?
Nanoparticles form in bacterial membranes within mine water.
Credit: HZDR/J. Raff/E. Krawczyk-Bärsch/edited with AI
Bacteria may offer an unexpected way to immobilize uranium in contaminated water.
Uranium contamination is difficult to manage because the metal can change chemical form. When uranium remains locked inside minerals, it is relatively immobile. But when environmental conditions or mining activity convert it into a soluble form, it can move through groundwater and spread beyond the original source.
A new study suggests that naturally occurring bacteria may be able to stop some of that movement. Researchers found that microbes living in water from a flooded uranium mine removed nearly all of the dissolved uranium and converted much of it into an unexpectedly stable compound.
The work was carried out by scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Wismut GmbH, and the University of Granada in Spain. Their results were published in Nature Communications.
Turning Mobile Uranium Into a More Stable Form
The chemical form of uranium matters because it influences how easily the element moves through soil and water. Some forms dissolve readily, while others become trapped in minerals, sediments, or biological material.
In the new experiments, bacteria converted dissolved uranium into a solid compound after receiving glycerol as a food source. Glycerol is a component of plant and animal fats and can also form naturally when fungi decompose wood.
In the experiments, the uranium entered a pentavalent state, known as uranium(V), which is considered rare and typically short lived under environmental conditions.
Bacteria Already Living in Mine Water
Microorganisms are major drivers of chemical change in soil and groundwater. Some species can process metals and other pollutants as part of their metabolism, altering whether those substances remain mobile or become fixed in place.
“There are bacteria that can metabolically utilize the heavy metal, uranium, which is toxic for humans,” says Dr. Evelyn Krawczyk-Bärsch, a scientist in HZDR’s Terrestrial Microbiology research group and co-author of the study. “Our group’s investigations had already revealed that bacteria can use uranium dissolved in water for their metabolism when they have access to glycerol as a food source.”
The researchers wanted to answer two main questions: how much uranium the bacteria could remove from the water and what chemical forms would appear after the microbes had processed it.
Recreating Conditions Deep Underground
The team used water from a flooded uranium mine in the Ore Mountains operated by Wismut GmbH. The samples already contained a natural community of bacteria adapted to the mine environment.
Researchers added a measured amount of glycerol and kept the samples under oxygen-free conditions. This was intended to reproduce the environment deep inside the mine, where oxygen can be scarce or absent.
“We wanted to create natural conditions for the bacterial community already existing in the mine water because at a depth of approximately 2,000 meters there is usually little or no oxygen in the mine,” explains Dr. Antonio M. Newman-Portela, former doctoral candidate at both HZDR and the Microbiology Department at the University of Granada (Spain), and the lead author of the study.
The mine reached a depth of about 2,000 meters (6,562 feet). Under laboratory conditions favorable to bacterial growth, the microbes used glycerol as a source of carbon and energy.
Most of the Dissolved Uranium Disappeared
After 130 days, only about 5 percent of the dissolved uranium remained in the water.
“After 130 days, only around five percent of the uranium dissolved in the water remained in the samples,” says Newman-Portela. “We suspected that the bacteria had incorporated the uranium in their cell walls. We already knew about accumulation processes from the literature.”
Further analysis confirmed that uranium had accumulated in the bacterial cell walls. That finding showed where much of the metal had gone, but it did not yet reveal the exact compound that had formed.
Detecting an Unusual Oxidation State
To identify the uranium compound, the team used advanced microscopy and spectroscopy. Some of the experiments were conducted at the Rossendorf Beamline (ROBL), which HZDR operates at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Additional analyses were carried out at the University of Granada.
The researchers examined the bacterial material to determine uranium’s oxidation state, which reflects how its electrons are arranged and how it can bond with other elements.
“Uranium usually occurs with a valency of 4 or 6. Pentavalent uranium does exist, but it is rare or only transient. Until now, it had been seen in an unstable oxidation state,” explains Newman-Portela. “So, the findings of our study were extremely surprising because in the biomass analyzed from our experimental runs, an unusually high proportion of the uranium identified was also pentavalent uranium.”
A Compound That May Persist for Decades
The pentavalent uranium had combined with iron and oxygen to form FeU(V)O4.
“This uranium compound doesn’t have a name yet as it is comparatively new. It was first demonstrated in a study in 2020 in which soil samples from parts of Croatia contaminated by uranium ammunition were analyzed,” explains Krawczyk-Bärsch. “It was found that even under the influence of atmospheric oxygen this uranium compound had remained stable for more than 25 years. But until now, we didn’t know how this compound is formed in nature or that bacteria play a role in its formation.”
The earlier Croatian finding showed that the compound could remain intact for decades in contaminated soil. The new study offers a possible explanation for how it forms, pointing to bacterial activity as a key part of the process.
The researchers also found that the amount of FeU(V)O4 increased after dried bacterial biomass was exposed to oxygen. This suggests that oxygen did not simply destroy the compound and may instead have supported further formation under those conditions.
A Possible Tool for Uranium Cleanup
The findings could help scientists better understand how uranium behaves in contaminated groundwater, mine water, and waste sites. They may also support research into bioremediation, which uses living organisms to reduce the movement, toxicity, or availability of pollutants.
“Our study has revealed for the first time that bacteria supplied with glycerol as a carbon source can convert toxic uranium dissolved in water into a stable chemical compound,” says Krawczyk-Bärsch. “We still have to investigate to what extent bacteria might help to render uranium harmless for remediation purposes.”
The approach is not yet ready for practical cleanup projects. Researchers still need to determine how reliably the process works outside the laboratory, how long the uranium remains stable, and how environmental changes might affect the compound over time.
Future HZDR studies will focus on uranium-binding bacteria and the biochemical and geochemical reactions that allow the microbes to immobilize the metal.
Investigators at Cedars Sinai analyzed long-term health outcomes, liver MRI scans, and blood proteins, finding new evidence that coffee is associated with lower risks of cirrhosis, liver cancer, and death from liver disease.
Credit: Shutterstock
Coffee’s apparent liver benefits may extend beyond caffeine.
Liver disease often develops quietly, with fat buildup, inflammation, and scarring progressing for years before symptoms appear. A new Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University study suggests that one of the world’s most common beverages may be linked to a lower risk of that damage: people who drank more coffee had fewer cases of cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver-related death.
Published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the research went beyond tracking coffee intake and diagnoses. Investigators combined more than a decade of health records with liver MRI scans and blood protein analyses, uncovering biological clues that may help explain how coffee is associated with healthier liver tissue and reduced disease risk.
Hyunseok Kim, MD, MPH, PhD.
Credit: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
“Previous studies suggested that coffee might benefit the liver, but most were smaller or looked at only one piece of the puzzle,” said hepatologist Hyunseok Kim, MD, MPH, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai and corresponding author of the study. “We followed hundreds of thousands of people for more than a decade and looked at their health outcomes along with liver MRI scans and blood protein analyses. Together, those findings help explain the biological mechanisms behind coffee’s association with better liver health.”
Large cohort strengthens the link
The researchers analyzed 354,957 adults in the UK Biobank who did not have cirrhosis or liver cancer when the study began. They then followed participants for a median of 13 years, using linked health records to track new cases of cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver-related death.
That long follow-up mattered because serious liver disease often develops gradually. Cirrhosis is advanced scarring that makes it harder for the liver to work, while liver cancer and liver-related death represent later and more severe outcomes. By following hundreds of thousands of people over more than a decade, the investigators could compare coffee habits with those major endpoints.
Compared with non-coffee drinkers, participants who reported drinking five or more cups a day had a 32% lower risk of cirrhosis, a 47% lower risk of liver cancer, and a 42% lower risk of liver-related death. The imaging results added another layer to the pattern. People who drank more coffee tended to have lower levels of liver fat, liver iron, fibrosis, and liver inflammation on MRI scans.
Ju Dong Yang, MD.
Credit: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Blood protein data pointed in the same direction. Coffee drinkers had higher levels of proteins associated with healthy liver function and lower levels of proteins connected to scarring and inflammation. Those molecular clues helped move the findings from a population pattern toward a possible biological explanation.
Moderate intake remains the message
Although the lowest liver health risks appeared among people who drank more coffee, Cedars-Sinai investigators did not frame the results as a reason to push intake to five or more cups per day. Benefits were seen even at one to two cups daily and appeared strongest around three to four cups.
The results were similar for caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. That detail is important because it suggests caffeine is probably not acting alone. Coffee contains many naturally occurring compounds, and some of them may influence pathways tied to inflammation, scarring, and liver metabolism.
The study was observational, meaning it can show an association but cannot prove that coffee directly prevents liver disease. Coffee also cannot replace the habits and medical care already known to reduce liver risk.
“Our findings support moderate coffee consumption for people who already enjoy and tolerate it well,” said study senior author Ju Dong Yang, MD, medical director of the Liver Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai.
“However, we would not recommend that someone begin drinking coffee solely for liver protection based on this study alone. Prevention should continue to focus on maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, exercising regularly, and managing blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol.”
Shelly Lu, MD.
Credit: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Caffeine can also be risky or uncomfortable for some people. Those with uncontrolled high blood pressure, certain heart rhythm disorders, severe anxiety, insomnia, or medical conditions that require limiting caffeine should talk with a healthcare provider before increasing their coffee intake.
Molecular clues guide next steps
The next challenge is to identify which parts of coffee may be linked to the liver benefits seen in the study. That requires moving from broad dietary patterns to specific compounds and pathways.
“The next step in our research is to identify the specific compounds in coffee that are responsible for these liver-protective associations,” said study author Shelly Lu, MD, the Women’s Guild Chair in Gastroenterology and director of the Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Cedars-Sinai. “Our findings point to biological pathways involving inflammation and scarring and highlight molecular targets that future research can explore to better understand how coffee may influence liver health and who stands to benefit the most.”
Reflective satellites are getting in the way of stargazing.
(Joshua Rozells)
Low Earth orbit is becoming increasingly crowded with satellites, and they're quietly erasing our view of the Universe.
There are currently over 14,000 of them in orbit, a number that's rising quickly. That's a real issue for astronomers.
So-called satellite-induced light pollution is already interfering with a significant number of images captured by observatories on Earth, and with thousands more low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites planned, the problem is only going to get worse.
"The night sky is one of humanity's oldest windows into the Universe," says astrophysicist Astha Chaturvedi from the University of Surrey.
"But it is becoming increasingly difficult to see things."
Chaturvedi and a team of researchers in the UK think they might have the answer: Vantablack 310, a specific formulation of one of the blackest materials ever developed, intended for use on spacecraft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJNwAKSL17s
In lab tests, coating satellites with Vantablack 310 meant that only 2 percent of incoming light was reflected.
"Our results show that relatively simple material choices could make a meaningful difference to how satellites affect astronomical observations without requiring major changes to mission design," says Chaturvedi.
The researchers used physics models to test the black coating's performance at different points in orbit – a shiny satellite is more reflective over snow than over the open ocean, for example.
At its most reflective, the Vantablack 310 satellite scored between 6.7 and 7.0 on the AB magnitude scale (lower values indicate brighter).
Two bronze busts – one of which has been coated with Vantablack 310.
(Surrey NanoSystems)
Many simulated orbits produced results comfortably above this, with values reaching 7.1 to 7.8.
That worst-case figure of 6.7 is just below the magnitude-7 threshold for satellite and orbiting-object brightness recommended by the International Astronomical Union.
It's also much better than the magnitude 3.7 scored by an uncoated SpaceX satellite tested by the researchers.
It's worth mentioning that SpaceX has also tested methods to reduce satellite brightness under the names DarkSat and VisorSat. Vantablack 310 proved comparable to or better than these as well.
"Under identical geometric and areal assumptions, the coated surface yields peak brightness values that are fainter than those reported for uncoated Starlink chassis, and comparable to or fainter than DarkSat and VisorSat variants," write the researchers in their published paper.
In addition, the team used an electron microscope to see how the ultra-black coating affected the treated satellite.
They found it created "coral-like features with cavity-like depressions", evidence of the physical properties that are doing the light trapping.
Under a scanning electron microscope, Vantablack 310 has a "coral-like" appearance. (Chaturvedi et al., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc., 2026)
Vantablack 310 is a relatively new version of the original material, designed to be easier to apply and harder-wearing – though, as the researchers point out, all of this still needs to be put to the test in space.
"We emphasize that this study addresses optical performance only," write the researchers.
"Spacecraft-level thermal behavior, environmental durability, and system integration require dedicated thermal-vacuum testing and in-orbit validation and are therefore beyond the scope of this work."
Further experiments are already in the pipeline, and Vantablack 310 is set to be used on an upcoming CubeSat mission called Jovian-1. This will allow researchers to take real-world brightness measurements from the ground while the satellite is in orbit.
If we're going to be increasingly reliant on these LEO satellites for communication systems (and maybe even AI data centers), it shouldn't come at the cost of being able to get a full view of the night sky.
These initial tests show that Vantablack 310 can help – even if we'd still need a different solution for the space debris problem.
"Space is becoming increasingly crowded, creating challenges not only for astronomers but for everyone who values an unspoiled night sky," says astrophysicist Noelia Noël from the University of Surrey.
"What is encouraging about this research is that it moves us beyond simply identifying the problem and towards developing practical, evidence-based solutions."
Entrance to Pešturina Cave in Serbia, where a Neanderthal tooth genetically analyzed in this study was discovered.
Credit: Dusan Mihailovic
A new study from the Senckenberg Nature Research Society and the University of Tübingen reveals major shifts in Neanderthal genetic history.
Near the end of their time in Europe, Neanderthals were not spread across the continent as a deeply varied population. Their DNA now points to a much narrower story: a severe genetic bottleneck, a retreat into one refuge, and a later expansion by descendants of that surviving group.
A study combining new DNA evidence with archaeological records suggests that Europe’s final Neanderthals went through a major population turnover before they disappeared roughly 40,000 years ago. An international research group led by Professor Cosimo Posth at the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen traced this history and found that earlier, more widespread Neanderthal populations in Europe had largely vanished.
The new analysis indicates that one localized group survived harsh conditions about 75,000 years ago by retreating to a climate refuge in what is now southwestern France. After about 65,000 years ago, descendants of that refuge population expanded across Europe. As a result, nearly all Late Neanderthals studied so far appear to come from the same maternal genetic lineage.
Excavations at the Tourtoirac rock shelter in France, where three Neanderthal remains analyzed in this study were found.
Credit: Luc Doyon
Posth and his colleagues also found evidence of another sharp decline around 45,000 years ago. Neanderthal numbers fell quickly and reached a low point around 42,000 years ago, not long before the species disappeared. The findings were published in PNAS.
Neanderthals were genetically distinct from Homo sapiens, the modern humans who replaced them in Europe by around 40,000 years ago. The broad outline is known, but the details of their final population history have remained difficult to reconstruct because the evidence is scattered and incomplete.
“We have evidence that Neanderthals inhabited Europe continuously between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago. However, we have only fragmentary details of their population history,” says Posth. “So far, we know very little about the evolutionary developments that preceded their extinction.” For that reason, Posth and his colleagues focused on Late Neanderthals, the groups that lived between roughly 60,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Artist’s impression of the glacial landscape encountered by Neanderthals during the Ice Age.
Credit: Direction de l’archéologie du Pas-de-Calais/Benoît Clarys Ten rare new individuals
To follow the genetic trail, the researchers turned to mitochondria in Neanderthal teeth and bones recovered from caves and rockshelters. Mitochondria are small structures inside cells that help produce energy. They also carry their own DNA, inherited separately from the DNA in the cell nucleus.
“Mitochondrial DNA does not contain nearly as much genetic information as the entire genome of a human being, but it usually survives longer and is easier to obtain,” says Charoula Fotiadou from Posth’s research group and first author of the study.
That durability made mitochondrial DNA especially useful for rare and ancient Neanderthal remains. Fotiadou and colleagues sequenced mitochondrial DNA from 10 previously unanalyzed Neanderthal individuals found at six archaeological sites in Belgium, France, Germany and Serbia. They then compared those data with 49 previously published Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA samples.
Collection of Neanderthal skeletal elements retrieved from Goyet Cave in Bel-gium, three of which are investigated in this study.
Credit: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences
The genetic evidence was paired with archaeological information from ROAD, a major database documenting Neanderthal presence across Europe. ROAD was developed by the ROCEEH (The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans) project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, and the University of Tübingen.
“This allowed us to combine the two lines of evidence and reconstruct the demographic history of Neanderthals in terms of space and time,” said study co-author Jesper Borre Pedersen from the ROCEEH project.
Late Neanderthals all of the same stock
The combined evidence points to a major disruption around 75,000 years ago, when Ice Age conditions appear to have hit European Neanderthals hard. Archaeological sites became fewer and more concentrated in southwestern Europe, while genetic diversity dropped.
“Our data enabled us to reconstruct geographically that Neanderthals retreated to what is now southwestern France. There, around 65,000 years ago, a new population emerged and later spread across the whole of Europe,” says Posth. “This explains why almost all Late Neanderthals sequenced so far – from the Iberian Peninsula to the Caucasus – belong to the same line of inherited mitochondrial DNA.” The pattern suggests a large genetic turnover in European Neanderthals, with later groups descending mainly from one surviving lineage.
Artist’s reconstruction of the Neanderthal foetus from Sesselfelsgrotte in Germa-ny. One of the highlighted bones recovered from this individual was analyzed in this study.
Credit: Alice Walczer Baldinazzo
The researchers also tested whether changes in mitochondrial DNA diversity matched what would be expected from a Neanderthal population that stayed roughly the same size over time. The result did not fit that stable scenario. Instead, the data point to a rapid and severe decline between 45,000 and 42,000 years ago.
“Genetically speaking, the Late Neanderthals were a very homogeneous group,” says Posth. “So it may be that the low genetic diversity – and possibly also the subsequent isolation of small groups – contributed to the disappearance of the Neanderthals.”
While the world drowns in plastic, researchers are on the hunt for practical materials that are lightweight, tough, and biodegradable.
In recent years, scientists have increasingly turned to the natural world for inspiration – with a whole lot of research focusing on the impressive features of spider silk.
But there's another promising alternative hiding in plain sight: bee silk.
If you're scratching your head right now, you're not alone. Most people have never heard of bee silk.
"Silk production is far more widespread in nature than most people realize," Oran Wasserman, a molecular biologist who completed his doctorate at Utah State University in Justin Jones' Spider Silk Lab, told ScienceAlert.
"Silk has evolved independently many times, with at least 23 separate origins in insects alone," Wasserman explained, including ants, bees, and wasps.
Earlier this year, Wasserman and his team became the first to create a film of a specific type of bee silk – an important first step in harnessing the power of the incredible material.
In the insect world, silk can be used for anything and everything from web-building to nest construction to cocoon-spinning.
For bees specifically, the purpose is protection.
"Social bees, such as honey bees and bumble bees, produce silk to line the brood cells of their colonies," said Wasserman.
"Solitary bees, which make up about 75 percent of all bee species, spin silk to construct cocoons that provide protection from environmental stressors."
That's right, around three quarters of all bee species spin silk.
"Silk production is far more widespread in nature than most people realize," – molecular biologist Oran Wasserman
Researchers have actually been looking into the properties of different bee silks for the past 20 years, but Wasserman and the Jones lab have taken things a step further by creating a non-invasive approach to synthesizing the silk.
This is important, because even though everyone knows how impressive spider silk is – five times stronger than steel by weight! – it has proven incredibly hard to reproduce in the lab.
Wasserman's research focused on the blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria), a solitary bee and important orchard pollinator with small, brownish, elongated cocoons that have a distinctive nipple-shaped cap at one end.
Three cocoons from the Blue Orchard Bee (Osmia lignaria). (deepspacedave/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
These cocoons are tougher than they look.
Despite both using silk to make cocoons, silkworms and blue orchard bees produce their silk very differently. A silkworm spins its cocoon from a single continuous thread.
A bee larva takes a more architectural approach, explained Wasserman. It anchors silk to the nest cell wall, pulls the strand across using its head movements, and fastens it at a new spot, repeating the process until fully enclosed.
The resulting cocoon has only a few structural layers, but they work together to balance gas exchange, mechanical protection, moisture retention, and parasite resistance.
That last point matters more than it sounds.
Solitary bee cocoons face a very real threat: parasitoid wasps. These are wasps that locate bee cocoons using chemical signals, then attempt to punch through with a needle-like appendage to lay eggs inside the developing bee (ew, we know).
The bee silk cocoon is essentially the larva's only line of defense.
Different stages of the larva and O. lignaria cocoon. (Wasserman et al., PLOS One, 2025)
And as well as being incredibly puncture-proof (a property the Jones Lab is actively studying further with a new protocol), the material is also flexible, antimicrobial, and breathable.
Exactly the combination you'd want in next-generation biomedical materials like surgical sutures, tissue-engineering scaffolds, and technical textiles.
The challenge with harnessing these properties, however, was recreating the silk outside of the bee larva.
Wasserman's initial attempts involved isolating single silk fibers from completed cocoons, but the process was laborious and resulted in a lot of broken strands. So the team went back to the source.
"The protocol we developed isolates the silk fibers directly from the larva's mouth," Wasserman explains.
The puncture measurement test protocol, which the team has now started working with.
(Wasserman et al., STAR Protocols, 2025)
To do this, they use a 3D-printed rearing system that mimics the bees' natural nest cavity and then they actually raise bee larvae inside.
The team monitors each larva daily and steps in at the exact moment it begins spinning – when the first threads are still loose and within reach.
The fibers are then isolated and mounted for mechanical testing.
"One of the most promising aspects of the protocol is that the larvae continue to form their cocoons, indicating that the method is minimally invasive," explained Wasserman.
With those strands isolated, the team has now been able to produce the silk from scratch, using molecular biology techniques to insert the target genes into an engineered microorganism that pumped them out in the lab.
They then purified the resulting proteins (called fibroins) and cast them into transparent, freestanding films.
This is the first time a solitary bee silk protein has ever been produced this way and turned into a material.
While it's not directly usable for any applications just yet, the technique opens the door for more study of bee silk across different species.
For example, it's known that honeybee silk is stretchier than orchard bee silk, and this same technique could potentially be used to recreate that silk, or even mix it with other materials.
That's what Wasserman and his team are doing now with their bee silk – combining it with something even stranger: hagfish slime.
Hagfish slime is also being studied by the US military for its properties.
(Ron Newsome/US Navy)
Hagfish are ancient, jawless deep-sea fish that release a viscous secretion when threatened. This secretion rapidly expands in seawater, clogging the gills of whatever is attacking them.
That slime is a mix of mucus and fine protein threads, and when those threads are stretched and dried, their mechanical properties approach those of spider silk.
Wasserman's lab uses the same molecular workflow for both hagfish proteins and bee silk, and both materials share a similar underlying protein structure. This means they could potentially be blended together into materials that combine the best properties of each.
"Silk has been used for various purposes for millennia," said Wasserman. "Even so, most of that attention has gone to a handful of species, mainly the silkworm and spiders.
"Across insects more broadly, silk is strikingly diverse, spun by many species that vary in its composition and mechanical properties … But surprisingly many aspects, such as their silk and cocoons, remain understudied.
"As the field continues to progress, I expect many of those open questions will start to get answered."
The microstructural evolution of the alloy, heated for 32 hours (left) versus 64 hours (right).
(Zhang et al., Science, 2026)
Metal alloys are used everywhere from aircraft to cutlery, making them an indispensable part of modern life.
Scientists are continuing to try to find ways to improve them – which often comes down to the way they're initially formed.
Steel is one of the classic alloy examples: mostly iron with a dash of carbon and other elements, making it much stronger and harder than iron on its own.
Now, an international team of researchers has come up with a new way of building alloys. The method, described in a new paper published in Science, promises to make metals that are several times stronger than the materials we rely on today.
The researchers prompted ordered atoms in their alloy.
(Monash University/AI)
The trick is using lower, more controlled temperatures than is normal for alloy manufacturing, and letting the metal 'bake' for a specific period.
This leads to a more stable and ordered configuration of atoms, set in blocks known as grains, that are both smaller and more well-packed than usual.
"For more than a century, alloy development has focused on composition and processing," says materials scientist Jian-Feng Nie from Monash University in Australia.
"Our work suggests that how atoms organize during manufacturing may be just as important.
"The real significance is not just this particular alloy, but the demonstration that atoms can self-organize into defect-free structures in a bulk metallic material, meaning a large, continuous piece of metal, not a thin coating, film or microscopic sample."
The alloy was strongest after 32 hours of heating (panel C).
(Zhang et al., Science, 2026)
That note on scaling is important – the idea of smaller, better-organized grains has been explored before, but scaling it up into something usable is challenging.
In the new study, the researchers mixed five metals together: hafnium, niobium, tantalum, titanium, and zirconium. After a brief high-temperature melting stage, the alloy was dropped to a relatively low 550 °C (1,022 °F) and left for several hours and even days.
At around 32 hours was when the researchers got their best result: a 'super alloy' called a Refractory High-Entropy Alloy (RHEAD).
It's two times stronger than steel, three times stronger than aluminum, and twice as strong as the same alloy made in a conventional way.
"By carefully controlling how the atoms organize during processing, we were able to create a highly connected structure with exceptional strength and stability," says materials scientist Yu Zhang from Chongqing University in China.
Both the choice of metals and the method of preparation create the conditions for the alloy atoms to organize themselves into repeating grain patterns, responding to the natural stresses between the mixed materials to create a structure free from defects.
That organization, plus the lack of defects and gaps between the recurring grains, is what gives the added strength.
Tests showed the new alloy achieved a compressive yield strength of more than two gigapascals while retaining its ductility, meaning it bends without breaking.
"If this concept can be applied more broadly, it could open the door to materials with properties that were previously considered unattainable, with implications for alloy design that could be applied across many systems and industries," says Nie.
"Instead of increasing alloy content to achieve better performance, we may be able to design internal structures that deliver superior properties with fewer alloying elements. That could lead to more efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective alloy production."
The researchers say their discoveries open up a wealth of possibilities for future manufacturing, in everything from aerospace to energy systems – and even technologies that haven't been imagined yet.
There's a lot more work to do though. Next, the team wants to understand not just what the atoms are doing in terms of rearranging themselves, but why they're doing it, which should enable this new technique to be expanded and refined.
"For more than a century, advances in alloys have come from altering the chemical composition and processing, guided largely by empirical trial and error," says Yiannis Ventikos, the Dean of Engineering at Monash University, who was not directly involved in the study.
"This research suggests we can actually engineer how atoms organize themselves, creating opportunities to develop materials with capabilities that were previously out of reach."
Invisible particles from deep space are constantly passing through us, but a new pocket-sized detector is making them visible in real time.
Credit: SciTechDaily.com
A pocket-sized particle detector is making cosmic ray physics accessible from classrooms to major experiments.
Particles from deep space are passing through the world around you right now. They leave no sound, taste, smell, or sensation, but with the right detector, their arrival can be counted one by one.
These particles begin with cosmic rays, energetic particles that can be produced by exploding stars and other extreme astrophysical events far beyond the solar system. When cosmic rays strike atoms high in Earth’s atmosphere, they set off a chain reaction that creates secondary particles. One important result is the muon, a tiny particle able to travel through the atmosphere and even reach below the ground.
University of Delaware physics professor Spencer Axani has built a way to bring that invisible particle rain into classrooms and research labs. His invention, CosmicWatch, is a compact muon detector that can be used by experienced scientists and high school students alike.
The device is about the size of a box of animal crackers and can be assembled from roughly $100 in electronic parts. When a muon passes through, CosmicWatch lights up, records the event and stores the data for later analysis.
Spencer Axani, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the inventor of CosmicWatch, a portable, low-cost particle detector that tracks muons, invisible particles that originate from space. The particles help scientists learn more about the universe’s most extreme phenomena.
Credit: Jeffrey C. Chase
CosmicWatch was first designed as an affordable way to introduce students to particle physics. It has since found a second life in international astrophysics experiments, where its small size and low cost make measurements possible in places that would be harder to reach with conventional equipment.
“CosmicWatch detectors allow us to do far more physics at a dramatically lower cost, in a compact and portable form, opening the door to many new kinds of experiments and outreach opportunities,” Axani said.
Birth of a detector
Muons matter because they carry clues about the cosmic rays that created them. By measuring muons, physicists can infer the energy, mass, and direction of the original cosmic ray, helping them study powerful objects and events such as supernovae, gamma ray bursts, and blazars. Muon flux also helped provide one of the earliest experimental confirmations of Einstein’s theory of special relativity in the early 1940s.
Their usefulness is not limited to space. Because muons can pass through matter such as walls, rock, and human tissue without causing damage, they can be used to peer inside large structures that are otherwise difficult to examine. In 2016, muon technology helped reveal an unknown corridor inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.
The challenge has always been access. Many muon detectors are large, expensive, and difficult to move, which limits both classroom use and the range of experiments that can be attempted.
Doctoral students Masooma Sarfraz and Miles Garcia (center and right) examine data from CosmicWatch in the lab, while senior Collin Owens and Axani work on part of a future experiment that will incorporate the invention.
Credit: Evan Krape and courtesy of Musarate Shams
“A typical undergraduate physics lab course uses a rack of electronics about the size of a small bookshelf to measure muons,” Axani said.
Axani created CosmicWatch in 2017 while he was a graduate student at MIT. At first, his goal was practical: build a small, low-power muon detector for the IceCube observatory in Antarctica. IceCube is a vast detector buried beneath the ice that studies neutrinos, another kind of subatomic particle. A muon detector helps IceCube scientists separate background particles from the neutrinos they are trying to detect.
The project changed direction when Axani realized that the same design could become an educational tool. A portable, inexpensive detector could let students handle real particle physics data without needing a full lab of specialized electronics.
After joining the UD faculty in 2022, Axani continued refining the device and recently released its third version. The upgrades, described in an October article in the Journal of Instrumentation, allow CosmicWatch to monitor its local environment, survive high radiation levels and collect data more quickly.
A shot from when the balloon used in Shams’s experiment burst. He recovered the CosmicWatch miles away from the launch site, and used the data to show how the flux of cosmic rays coming from outer space changes with altitude.
Credit: Evan Krape and courtesy of Musarate Shams
“Even though I had studied cosmic rays, I didn’t fully appreciate the rich physics behind the working of these detectors to actually ‘see’ the world and atmospheric particle production,” said Masooma Sarfraz, a doctoral student in Axani’s lab and primary author on the journal article. “For a student like me who has been working on theoretical ideas, this was a perfect opportunity to dive into the experimental side. It also connects beautifully to my current broader research work with particle physics.”
The newest CosmicWatch is useful for calibrating large-scale detectors and is now being used in the NuDot experiment at UD and the Coherent CAPTAIN-Mills (CCM) dark matter detector in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Another version is being developed to measure primary cosmic rays aboard rockets and spacecraft.
Science in action
CosmicWatch remains a teaching tool at UD, where Axani uses it to introduce students to particle, nuclear, and astrophysics. Students build the detectors themselves, learn how high-speed electronics work, and then use the devices to run experiments they design.
UD physics professor Spencer Axani has invented a portable, low-cost detector that senses invisible particles from space called muons. Muons help scientists learn more about some of the most extreme phenomena in the universe, like exploding stars, gamma ray bursts and blazars. CosmicWatch is being used in international astrophysics experiments, and in high school and college classrooms across the country, introducing a new generation of scientists to the field of particle physics.
Credit: University of Delaware
Musarate Shams, a doctoral student in the quantum science and engineering program, adapted his CosmicWatch by adding temperature and pressure sensors. He wanted to use it to investigate cosmic rays in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
In May, Shams sent the device up on a high-altitude balloon that climbed to 100,000 feet, near the edge of space. After studying the data, he was able to show how the flux of cosmic rays from outer space changes with altitude.
“It’s a very cool thing to build something in the lab in a couple of days that’s able to detect these cool particles from hundreds of light-years away,” he said.
CosmicWatch is also reaching classrooms beyond UD. Natasha Holmes, the Ann S. Bowers Associate Professor of Physics at Cornell University, has students in her introductory physics courses build the detectors and use them in experiments. For Holmes, the value is not just that students learn a concept, but that they work more like experimental physicists.
Doctoral student Musarate Shams used a CosmicWatch he built in an experiment investigating cosmic rays in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The detector was attached to a high-altitude balloon that rose to 100,000 feet above the Earth.
Credit: Evan Krape and courtesy of Musarate Shams
“The students seem really excited about doing this thing that is more like what particle physicists and experimental physicists actually do,” she said. “They get to learn some coding with it, and sometimes they break the devices and then we have to talk to them about being careful with your equipment. It’s very different from a typical physics lab. We’ve had students say they’re doing ‘real science’ after using it.”
Worldwide physics
Axani estimates that thousands of CosmicWatch detectors have been built since the first version was released eight years ago. He hopes the number could grow into a global citizen science network, with people around the world measuring local muon rates and sending their data to a shared site online.
He is also developing a related detector that could help groups of satellites respond to their environment. For example, the detectors could warn satellites about solar flares, allowing them to power down when needed.
The project began as an educational outreach effort, but it has since moved into research, calibration work, and possible space applications.
“Although it started as an educational program, it’s found a use in a lot of different areas of physics,” Axani said. “It’s pretty cool.”
We all know that humans have five senses. But a growing body of research shows we have a sixth one that almost nobody talks about – and it may be just as important for our wellbeing as any of the others.
It's called interoception: the body's ability to sense and interpret its own internal signals.
This sense detects things that seem 'invisible' but are happening constantly: your heart rate, your breathing, your hunger, the temperature running through your body.
"Although we don't take much notice of it, it's an extremely important sense as it ensures that every system in the body is working optimally," psychologists Jennifer Murphy of Royal Holloway University of London and Freya Prentice of University College London wrote in The Conversation in 2022.
"It does this by alerting us to when our body may be out of balance, such as making us reach for a drink when we feel thirsty or telling us to take our jumper off when we're feeling too hot."
So far, so simple.
But researchers are now beginning to realize that interoception goes beyond simply regulating our biological needs, and may play a part in a range of mental health conditions – including anxiety, depression, PTSD, and eating disorders.
It's still early days, but the general idea is that our awareness of things such as our muscle tension, breathing and heart rate can give us important clues about when a situation is 'safe' or 'unsafe'.
When interrupted, this process could contribute to mental health conditions.
(Maria Korneeva/Moment/Getty Images)
For example, someone with anxiety might be acutely aware of their heart rate in a situation such as a social interaction, which makes them feel uncomfortable in that situation.
Murphy and Prentice's 2022 analysis of 93 studies found that interoception differs significantly between men and women – with women showing lower accuracy on heart-based tasks in particular.
This may partly explain why conditions like anxiety and depression are more prevalent in women than men from puberty onward, they wrote for The Conversation, though they stressed that the relationship is complex and not fully understood.
But they're not the only ones exploring this link.
An experiment published in eBioMedicine this year looked at how hunger impacted mood, and showed that people with strong and accurate interoception experienced fewer mood swings than those with poor interoception.
"This does not mean they never felt hungry – they just seemed better at keeping their mood levels stable," medical psychologist and corresponding author Nils Kroemer from the University of Tübingen in Germany wrote for The Conversation.
One of the most striking pieces of evidence about interoception comes from research on people with anorexia nervosa by scientists at UCLA.
(Carlos Barquero/Moment/Getty Images)
The idea is that in people with anorexia, they have stopped being able to 'listen' to their own internal hunger signals.
By testing this interoception with an ingestible vibrating pill, the researchers were actually able to show that this was indeed the case – even after the patients put weight back on.
"People with anorexia nervosa do not simply ignore signals from the body," said Sahib Khalsa, the study's senior author and a neuroscientist at UCLA.
"Rather, their nervous system may process gut sensations differently, making those signals harder to detect, trust and learn from. Over time, that may contribute to the persistence of symptoms even after weight is restored."
However, not everyone is so convinced – an opinion published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2024 claimed "There is no such thing as interoception".
The authors, led by cognitive scientist Felix Schoeller from MIT, admitted their headline was designed to grab attention, but in reality they believe that researchers may be oversimplifying many different factors under the broad term of this interoceptive sixth sense.
"While the title of this article is intentionally provocative, it serves to highlight a critical issue in the field: namely that the term 'interoception' is often used in ways that belie the complexity and diversity of the phenomena it purports to describe," the team wrote.
And they may have a point. Barry Smith from the University of London claims humans actually have up to 33 different senses.
What we can say for sure is that humans are much more sensory than we give ourselves credit for. Even if we don't have a name for those senses as yet, they're already playing a bigger role in our wellbeing than we realize.
"Better understanding all the factors that affect interoceptive ability may be important for someday developing better treatments for many mental health conditions," wrote Prentice and Murphy.
Which footprint is bigger? An elephant's or a human's?
It depends on how you measure it.
As humanity leaves its mark on more of the African savanna, we are increasingly stepping on the toes of wild elephants.
Researchers in the United States and Namibia are now warning that a 'turf war' is afoot.
In Namibia, Botswana, and portions of Angola and Zambia, the rapid overhaul of wild land over the past two decades has brought humans and elephants into ever more conflict.
It's endangering both us and them.
African elephant in the village of Ramotswa in Botswana.
(poco_bw/iStock/Getty Images)
Using public records, researchers have identified three major factors driving the increase in human-elephant conflicts from 2004 to 2020.
The growth of human populations and the increase in human land use were the main factors at play, but climate-driven water deficits also played a smaller role.
If all three of these factors continue unchecked, machine learning algorithms predict future battles over land and resources will intensify in number and extent.
"We find that the area at high risk of human-elephant conflict increases by 33 to 100 percent by 2085," the international team concludes.
"Aggressive human land-use expansion leads to the most dramatic increases in conflict… "
The new information comes at a crucial time in elephant conservation for this region of southern Africa.
Just as populations of the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) are finally recovering from decades of poaching, their habitats are shrinking.
African savanna elephants are a keystone species, meaning that on their broad shoulders rests the fate of numerous other animals in the savanna ecosystem.
Unfortunately, however, it seems that our encroaching roads and fences are funneling the megafauna straight to human communities.
In this unnatural setting, elephants are known to raid crops, injure people, destroy infrastructure, and hurt livestock.
This can be devastating for local communities, and it has, at times, led to the culling of wild elephants. What's more, it undermines local support for elephant conservation.
"These trends, alongside the potential of growing climate pressures to further escalate conflict, present critical challenges for resource managers in the region," write the study authors, led by Evan Patrick from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The team includes researchers from the University of Namibia and the nation's Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.
In this nation, the most common form of human-elephant conflict is elephant crop raiding.
Warning traffic sign for elephants on gravel road in Namibia.
(Gunter Lenz/imageBROKER/Getty Images)
Because farming is so important to the region, the study authors point out that aggressive encounters with elephants "can result in economic damages that outweigh local benefits from trophy hunting."
The 'war' that is brewing between elephants and humans is heating up in Namibia's Zambezi region in particular.
This wet landscape is located in the nation's eastern panhandle, and it is very attractive to expanding farming interests.
It is also a functional corridor between core elephant reserves, where these large creatures are protected by law.
African elephant walking through human spaces.
(poco_bw/iStock/Getty Images)
In some regions, communal land management is self-governed and self-organized. This was intended so that on ancestral lands, the local people hold common property rights over wildlife and tourism operations.
Subsistence farming, however, remains a key livelihood strategy for many of these residents, bringing them head-to-head with elephants.
In the current study, human-elephant conflicts were assessed across 38 communal conservancies that have rapid population growth, with a combined population of nearly 150,000 people.
Using this data, future estimates consistently projected "a trend of increasing overlap and discord between elephants and human populations."
Today in southern Africa, nearly 300,000 elephants are protected by conservation efforts, but that success story may be at risk.
Without proactive intervention, the turf war between elephants and humans is projected to rapidly increase through the end of the century, conclude Patrick and colleagues.
Still, they argue, the fact that land use is the number one factor leading to human-elephant conflict should empower local decision-makers.
When planning for the future, leaving space for elephants could mitigate future damage, support coexistence, the researchers say, and "protect human livelihoods and at-risk species into the coming decades."
It's not too late to leave some parts of the savanna untrampled. We need to be careful where we step next.
