Canadian firm makes first bid for international seabed mining license

APRIL 30, 2025, by A. BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-canadian-firm-international-seabed.html

Seabed mining.

Canada's The Metals Company said Tuesday it applied to the United States to mine deep-sea minerals in international waters, a world first made possible by President Donald Trump's embrace of the industry.

Metal-containing deep-sea nodules, which have the appearance of potato-size pebbles and typically contain nickel and cobalt, are highly sought for use in electric vehicle batteries and electric cables.

But environmental groups have raised the alarm about the ecological cost of their extraction.

The request for a commercial exploitation license, submitted to US authorities by the TMC U.S. subsidiary, is for the mining of polymetallic nodules—deposits made up of multiple metals—in 9,700 square miles (25,200 square kilometers) of the Pacific's Clarion-Clipperton Zone.

"Today marks a major step forward—not just for TMC U.S., but for America's mineral independence and industrial resurgence," said Gerard Barron, chairman and CEO of The Metals Company.

TMC, which hopes to be the first firm to harvest the valuable nodules, said in March it would seek the first commercial deep-sea mining license from Washington.

It marked an abrupt shift in strategy as it had initially indicated that it would submit its request to the International Seabed Authority in June, which has jurisdiction over the seabed in international waters.

TMC justified cutting out the ISA because of the organization's slow pace in adopting a mining code that establishes the rules for exploiting seabed minerals.

Activists rally against deep sea mining outside the European Parliament in March 2023.

'Rogue and dangerous'

Just weeks after TMC's about-turn, Trump signed an executive order speeding up the review of applications and the issuing of exploitation permits—including in international waters.

"This latest development is just a confirmation they are a rogue and dangerous actor," Emma Wilson of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition told AFP.

"A moratorium at the ISA would send a clear signal to states and companies that are choosing to act outside the ISA that the global community is united in defending international law."

Washington, not a member of the ISA, governs the commercial extraction of minerals from the international seabed under a 1980 law that was the basis of Trump's executive order.

The United States hopes underwater mining will create 100,000 jobs and increase GDP by $300 billion over a decade, according to a US senior administration official, who also emphasized Washington's desire to outpace China in the field.

Polymetallic nodules grow with the help of microbes over millions of years around a kernel of organic matter, such as a shark's tooth or the ear-bone of a whale.

Beijing has strongly condemned Trump's move, accusing him of violating international law and harming the interests of the international community as a whole.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which established the ISA but has never been ratified by the United States, the seabed in international waters is considered the common heritage of humanity.

Greenpeace campaigner Ruth Ramos said the announcement would "be remembered as an act of total disregard for international law and scientific consensus."

Environmental campaigners argue that deep-sea mining threatens ecosystems about which little is known.

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Did 'induced atmospheric vibration' cause blackouts in Europe? An electrical engineer explains the phenomenon

APRIL 29, 2025, by M. Seyedmahmoudian, The Conversation

https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-atmospheric-vibration-blackouts-europe-electrical.html

Atmospheric waves can sometimes be seen in clouds. 

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz/NASA

The lights are mostly back on in Spain, Portugal and southern France after a widespread blackout on Monday.

The blackout caused chaos for tens of millions of people. It shut down traffic lights and ATMs, halted public transport, cut phone service and forced people to eat dinner huddled around candles as night fell. Many people found themselves trapped in trains and elevators.

Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said the exact cause of the blackout is yet to be determined. In early reporting, Portugal's grid operator REN was quoted as blaming the event on a rare phenomenon known as "induced atmospheric vibration." REN has since reportedly refuted this.

But what is this vibration? And how can energy systems be improved to mitigate the risk of widespread blackouts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2InJs2vdsE&t=3s

How much does weather affect electricity?

Weather is a major cause of disruptions to electricity supply. In fact, in the United States, 83% of reported blackouts between 2000 and 2021 were attributed to weather-related events.

The ways weather can affect the supply of electricity are manifold. For example, cyclones can bring down transmission lines, heat waves can place too high a demand on the grid, and bushfires can raze substations.

Wind can also cause transmission lines to vibrate. These vibrations are characterized by either high amplitude and low frequency (known as "conductor galloping"), or low amplitude and high frequency (known as "aeolian vibrations").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEGbYRii1d4&t=4s

These vibrations are a significant problem for grid operators. They can place increased stress on grid infrastructure, potentially leading to blackouts.

To reduce the risk of vibration, grid operators often use wire stabilizers known as "stock bridge dampers."

What is 'induced atmospheric vibration'?

Vibrations in power lines can also be caused by extreme changes in temperature or air pressure. And this is one hypothesis about what caused the recent widespread blackout across the Iberian peninsula.

As The Guardian initially reported Portugal's REN as saying:

"Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as "induced atmospheric vibration." These oscillations caused synchronization failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network."

In fact, "induced atmospheric vibration" is not a commonly used term, but it seems likely the explanation was intended to refer to physical processes climate scientists have known about for quite some time.

In simple terms, it seems to refer to wavelike movements or oscillations in the atmosphere, caused by sudden changes in temperature or pressure. These can be triggered by extreme heating, large-scale energy releases (such as explosions or bushfires), or intense weather events.

When a part of Earth's surface heats up very quickly—due to a heat wave, for example—the air above it warms, expands and becomes lighter. That rising warm air creates a pressure imbalance with the surrounding cooler, denser air. The atmosphere responds to this imbalance by generating waves, not unlike ripples spreading across a pond.

These pressure waves can travel through the atmosphere. In some cases, they can interact with power infrastructure—particularly long-distance, high-voltage transmission lines.

These types of atmospheric waves are usually called gravity waves, thermal oscillations or acoustic-gravity waves. While the phrase "induced atmospheric vibration" is not formally established in meteorology, it seems to describe this same family of phenomena.

What's important is that it's not just high temperatures alone that causes these effects—it's how quickly and unevenly the temperature changes across a region. That's what sets the atmosphere into motion and can cause power lines to vibrate. Again, though, it's still unclear if this is what was behind the recent blackout in Europe.

More centralized, more vulnerable

Understanding how the atmosphere behaves under these conditions is becoming increasingly important. As our energy systems become more interconnected and more dependent on long-distance transmission, even relatively subtle atmospheric disturbances can have outsized impacts. What might once have seemed like a fringe effect is now a growing factor in grid resilience.

Under growing environmental and electrical stress, centralized energy networks are dangerously vulnerable. The increasing electrification of buildings, the rapid uptake of electric vehicles, and the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources have placed unprecedented pressure on traditional grids that were never designed for this level of complexity, dynamism or centralization.

Continuing to rely on centralized grid structures without fundamentally rethinking resilience puts entire regions at risk—not just from technical faults, but from environmental volatility.

The way to avoid such catastrophic risks is clear: we must embrace innovative solutions such as community microgrids. These are decentralized, flexible and resilient energy networks that can operate independently when needed.

Strengthening local energy autonomy is key to building a secure, affordable and future-ready electricity system.

The European blackout, regardless of its immediate cause, demonstrates that our electrical grids have become dangerously sensitive. Failure to address these structural weaknesses will have consequences far worse than those experienced during the COVID pandemic.

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Antarctica’s Astonishing Rebound: Ice Sheet Grows for the First Time in Decades

BY SCIENCE CHINA PRESS, APRIL 29, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/antarcticas-astonishing-rebound-ice-sheet-grows-for-the-first-time-in-decades/

The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) has historically lost mass, significantly contributing to sea-level rise, with intensified losses in West Antarctica and parts of East Antarctica, particularly from 2011–2020. However, between 2021 and 2023, driven by anomalous precipitation, the AIS experienced a record-breaking mass gain, even reversing trends in critical glacier basins like Totten, Moscow, Denman, and Vincennes Bay.

Mass changes across the Antarctic ice sheet have been detected using satellite gravimetry, revealing significant instabilities in major glacier basins of East Antarctica as well as across the entire ice sheet.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) plays a major role in global sea-level rise. Since March 2002, the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) mission and its successor, GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On), have provided valuable data to monitor changes in ice mass across the AIS.

Previous studies have consistently shown a long-term trend of mass loss, particularly in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, while glaciers in East Antarctica appeared relatively stable. However, a recent study led by Dr. Wang and Prof. Shen at Tongji University has found a surprising shift: between 2021 and 2023, the AIS experienced a record-breaking increase in overall mass.

Antarctic Ice Sheet mass change series (April 2002–December 2023) derived from GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry. Ellipses highlight period-specific mass change rates, while the grey shadow indicates the data gap between missions. 

Credit: Science China Press

Notably, four major glaciers in the Wilkes Land–Queen Mary Land region of East Antarctica reversed their previous pattern of accelerated mass loss from 2011 to 2020 and instead showed significant mass gain during the 2021 to 2023 period.

Record-breaking mass gain over the Antarctic Ice Sheet

From 2002 to 2010, the AIS has experienced a mass loss with a change rate of –73.79±56.27 Gt/yr, which nearly doubled to –142.06±56.12 Gt/yr for the period 2011–2020. This accelerated mass loss was primarily related to intensified mass depletion in West Antarctica and the WL-QML region of East Antarctica. However, a significant reversal occurred thereafter, driven by anomalous precipitation accumulation, the AIS gained mass at a rate of 107.79±74.90 Gt/yr between 2021 and 2023.

Spatial distributions of mass change rates over the AIS and its regions for three sub-periods. 

Credit: Science China Press

Correspondingly, the contribution of mass change over the AIS to global mean sea level rise was 0.20±0.16 mm/yr during 2002–2010 and 0.39±0.15 mm/yr during 2011–2020. In contrast, during 2021–2023, it exerted a negative contribution, offsetting global mean sea level rise at a rate of 0.30±0.21 mm/yr.

Enhanced mass loss of the Totten, Moscow, Denman, and Vincennes Bay glacier basins, East Antarctica

The four key glacier basins in WL-QML region, i.e., Totten, Moscow University, Denman, and Vincennes Bay, exhibited mass loss intensification with a rate of 47.64±8.14 Gt/yr during 2011-2020, compared to 2002-2010, with the loss area expanding inland. The researchers explained “this accelerated mass loss was primarily driven by two factors: surface mass reduction (contributing 72.53%) and increased ice discharge (27.47%).”

Spatiotemporal patterns of mass change rates (2002–2020) for Totten, Moscow, Denman, and Vincennes Bay glacier basins. 

Gray box: rate differences (2011–2020 minus 2002–2010); 

light blue boxes: time series with epoch rates (elliptical markers), 

where the gray shadow denotes GRACE-GRACE-FO data gap. 

Credit: Science China Press

Notably, the complete disintegration of these four glaciers could potentially trigger a global mean sea level rise exceeding 7 meters. Their pronounced ablation patterns already constitute a critical climate warning signal, warranting greater scientific attention to their stability.

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Popularly eaten fish among key seabed engineers, research shows

APRIL 28, 2025, by U. of Exeter

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-popularly-eaten-fish-key-seabed.html

Atlantic cod. Credit: Alex Mustard

Many of the fish we eat play a key role in maintaining the seabed—and therefore our climate, new research shows. Convex Seascape Survey scientists assessed the role of fish in bioturbation (churning and reworking sediments) in shallow UK seas. Their paper, published in the journal Marine Environmental Research, is titled "A functional assessment of fish as bioturbators and their vulnerability to local extinction."

The Atlantic cod—a staple in eateries—jointly topped the list of these important "ecosystem engineers" (along with Atlantic hagfish and European eel).

In total, 185 fish species were found to play a role in bioturbation—and 120 of these are targeted by commercial fishing.

"Ocean sediments are the world's largest reservoir of organic carbon—so what happens on the seabed matters for our climate," said University of Exeter Ph.D. student Mara Fischer, who led the study.

"Bioturbation is very important for how the seabed takes up and stores organic carbon, so the process is vital to our understanding of how the ocean absorbs greenhouse gases to slow the rate of climate change.

"Bioturbation is also important for seabed and wider ocean ecosystems.

"We have a good understanding of how invertebrates contribute to global bioturbation—but until now, we have been missing half the story.

"Our study is the first to attempt to quantify the bioturbation impact of fish, and it shows they play a significant, widespread role."

Atlantic cod. 

Credit: Alex Mustard

Overfished and overlooked

Co-author Professor Callum Roberts, from the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, said, "We also found that species with the highest bioturbation impacts are among the most vulnerable to threats such as commercial fishing.

"Many of the largest and most powerful diggers and disturbers of seabed sediments, like giant skates, halibut and cod, have been so overfished they have all but vanished from our seas.

"These losses translate into big, but still uncertain, changes in the way seabed ecosystems work."

The researchers examined records for all fish species living on the UK continental shelf, and found more than half have a role in bioturbation—sifting and excavating sediment during foraging, burrowing and/or building nests.

These different ways of reworking the sediments—termed bioturbation modes—alongside the size of the fish and the frequency of bioturbation, were used by the researchers to calculate a bioturbation impact score for each species.

Examples include:

European eel. 

Bioturbation mode: burrower. Bioturbation score (out of 125): 100. IUCN conservation status: critically endangered. Fished primarily using traps and fyke nets, they are considered a delicacy in many parts of Europe and Asia—commonly prepared as smoked eel or dishes like eel pie and eel soup. Threats include climate change, diseases and parasites, habitat loss, pollutants and fishing.

Atlantic cod.

 Bioturbation mode: vertical excavator. Bioturbation score: 100. IUCN status: vulnerable. Primarily fished using trawling and longlining, they are consumed in many forms, including fish and chips, fresh filets, salted cod, and cod liver oil. Threats include overfishing, climate change and habitat degradation. Populations have declined in several parts of its range, particularly the North Sea and West Atlantic.

Common skate. 

Bioturbation mode: lateral excavator. Bioturbation score: 50. IUCN status: critically endangered. Historically targeted by trawling and longlining, this species is now protected in several regions—but often caught accidentally (bycatch). Numbers have drastically declined due to overfishing. The species is vulnerable due to its large size, slow growth rate, and low reproductive rate—only about 40 eggs are laid every other year, and each generation takes 11 years to reach maturity.

Black seabream.

 Bioturbation mode: nest builder. Bioturbation score: 36. IUCN status: least concern. Primarily caught using bottom trawling, gillnets, and hook and line. Fishing during the spawning season in April and May can impact population replenishment. Bottom trawling at this time has the potential to remove the fish, nests and eggs.

Red gurnard.

 Bioturbation mode: sediment sifter. Bioturbation score: 16. IUCN status: least concern. Historically not of major interest to commercial fisheries, the species has been targeted more in recent years (including in Cornwall). It is mainly caught by trawlers. There is currently no management for any gurnard species in the EU: no minimum landing size, no quota—which could lead to unsustainable fishing.

Julie Hawkins, another author of the study, commented, "Anyone who has spent time underwater, whether snorkeling or diving, knows that fish are constantly digging up the seabed.

"It's hard to believe that such an obvious and important activity has been largely overlooked when it comes to understanding ocean carbon burial."

The Convex Seascape Survey is a partnership between Blue Marine Foundation, the University of Exeter and Convex Group Limited. The ambitious five-year global research program is the largest attempt yet to build a greater understanding of the properties and capabilities of the ocean and its continental shelves in Earth's carbon cycle, in an urgent effort to slow climate change.

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Fungi dwelling on human skin may provide new antibiotics

APRIL 28, 2025, by L. Okahata, U. of Oregon

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-fungi-human-skin-antibiotics.html

Credit: Current Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.03.055

University of Oregon researchers have uncovered a molecule produced by yeast living on human skin that showed potent antimicrobial properties against a pathogen responsible for a half-million hospitalizations annually in the United States.

It's a unique approach to tackling the growing problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. With the global threat of drug-resistant infections, fungi inhabiting human skin are an untapped resource for identifying new antibiotics, said Caitlin Kowalski, a postdoctoral researcher at the UO who led the study.

Described in a paper published in Current Biology, the common skin fungus Malassezia gobbles up oil and fats on human skin to produce fatty acids that selectively eliminate Staphylococcus aureus. One out of every three people has Staphylococcus aureus harmlessly dwelling in their nose, but the bacteria are a risk factor for serious infections when given the opportunity: open wounds, abrasions and cuts. They're the primary cause of skin and soft tissue infections known as staph infections.

Staphylococcus aureus is also a hospital superbug notorious for being resistant to current antibiotics, elevating the pressing need for new medicines.

"There are lots of studies that identify new antibiotic structures," Kowalski said, "but what was fun and interesting about ours is that we identified (a compound) that is well-known and that people have studied before."

The compound is not toxic in normal lab conditions, but it can be potent in conditions that replicate the acidic environment of healthy skin.

"I think that's why in some cases we may have missed these kinds of antimicrobial mechanisms," Kowalski added, "because the pH in the lab wasn't low enough. But human skin is really acidic."

Humans play host to a colossal array of microorganisms, known as the microbiome, but we know little about our resident fungi and their contributions to human health, Kowalski said. The skin microbiome is of special interest to her because while other body parts crowd dozens of different fungi, the skin is dominantly colonized by one kind known as Malassezia.

Malassezia can be associated with cases of dandruff and eczema, but it's considered relatively harmless and a normal part of skin flora. The yeast has evolved to live on mammalian skin, so much so that it can't make fatty acids without the lipids—oils and fats—secreted by the skin.

Despite the abundance of Malassezia found on us, they remain understudied, Kowalski said.

"The skin is a parallel system to what's happening in the gut, which is really well-studied," she said. "We know that the intestinal microbiome can modify host compounds and make their own unique compounds that have new functions. Skin is lipid-rich, and the skin microbiome processes these lipids to also produce bioactive compounds. So what does this mean for skin health and diseases?"

Looking at human skin samples from healthy donors and experiments done with skin cells in the lab, Kowalski found that the fungal species Malassezia sympodialis transformed host lipids into antibacterial hydroxy fatty acids. Fatty acids have various functions in cells but are notably the building blocks for cell membranes.

The hydroxy fatty acids synthesized by Malassezia sympodialis were detergent-like, destroying the membranes of Staphylococcus aureus and causing its internal contents to leak away. The attack prevented the colonization of Staphylococcus aureus on the skin and ultimately killed the bacteria in as little as 15 minutes, Kowalski said.

But the fungus isn't a magic bullet. After enough exposure, the staph bacteria eventually become tolerant to the fungus, as they do when clinical antibiotics are overused.

Looking at their genetics, the researchers found that the bacteria evolved a mutation in the Rel gene, which activates the bacterial stress response. Similar mutations have been previously identified in patients with Staphylococcus aureus infections.

The findings show that a bacteria's host environment and interactions with other microbes can influence its susceptibility to antibiotics.

"There's growing interest in applying microbes as a therapeutic, such as adding bacteria to prevent the growth of a pathogen," Kowalski said. "But it can have consequences that we have not yet fully understood. Even though we know antibiotics lead to the evolution of resistance, it hasn't been considered when we think about the application of microbes as a therapeutic."

While the discovery adds a layer of complexity to drug discovery, Kowalski said she is excited about the potential of resident fungi as a new source for future antibiotics.

Identifying the antimicrobial fatty acids took three years and a cross-disciplinary effort. Kowalski collaborated with chemical microbiologists at McMaster University to track down the compound.

"It was like finding a needle in a haystack but with molecules you can't see," said Kowalski's adviser, Matthew Barber, an associate professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the UO.

Kowalski is working on a follow-up study that goes deeper into the genetic mechanisms that led to antibiotic tolerance. She is also preparing to launch her own lab to further investigate the overlooked role of the skin microbiome, parting from Barber's lab after bringing fungi into focus.

"Antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are a major human health threat and one that in some ways is getting worse," Barber said. "We still have a lot of work to do in understanding the microorganisms, and also finding new ways that we can possibly treat or prevent those infections."

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Sun's explosions echo in Earth's skies: How the atmosphere synchronizes with solar flare pulsations

APRIL 28, 2025. by E. Gallagher, Queen's U. Belfast

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-sun-explosions-echo-earth-skies.html

The wavelet power spectrum of the three EUV emission lines:

 (a) He II 304 Å, (b) C III 977 Å, (c) H I 972 Å, and (d) TEC.

The solid black line denotes 99 significance. 

The white hashed area is outside the cone of influence, 

and the colour bar represents the normalized wavelet power. 

Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics (2025). DOI: 10.1029/2024JA033493

Earth's atmosphere is much more sensitive to ripples of radiation from the sun than scientists previously believed, new research by Queen's University Belfast has found.

Solar flares, which are sudden and intense bursts of energy from the sun's magnetic field, happen regularly.

Understanding how they impact the Earth's atmosphere is important as very powerful flares can cause inaccuracies in GPS systems and, in extreme cases, can cause total radio blackouts, where all signal is lost.

The Queen's researchers have been analyzing a powerful solar flare that occurred in 2012, and for the first time, they found that pulsations within the flare and Earth's atmosphere were pulsing in sync. The research is published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.

Aisling O'Hare, a Ph.D. student in the School of Mathematics and Physics, led the study. She explains, "Using a space based satellite, we detected rhythmic pulses from the sun every 90 seconds. We also analyzed the changes in the density of Earth's atmosphere using a network of GPS satellites and ground-based receivers during this time and found that it responded with its own pulses just 30 seconds after the pulses were detected from the sun.

"This is important as we've been able to show, for the very first time, that the sun's flare pulsations and Earth's atmosphere were pulsing in sync during a solar flare."

Flare light curves in the GOES/XRS 1–8 Å channel (red), and the three EUV emission lines He II 304 Å (blue), C III 977 Å (orange) and H I 972 Å (green) as measured by SDO/EVE. 

The interval during which QPPs were found (00:12–00:22 UT) is marked by the yellow shaded area in between the two solid black vertical lines.

  Credit: Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics (2025). DOI: 10.1029/2024JA033493

Aisling is a member of an International Space Science Institute team exploring Earth-sun interactions and has traveled across the globe studying the dynamics of solar activity.

She adds, "We are currently in solar maximum—the sun's most active part of its 11-year cycle, so flares are happening almost every day, and this study sheds new light on how deeply their effects are felt on Earth. It has been fascinating leading the study as we've been able to reveal just how sensitive our atmosphere is to the solar flares.

"It's important for us to understand the impact of solar flares on Earth as it could have knock on effects on radio communication, satellite orbits and GPS accuracy."

Through the research, scientists now know that the pulsations in the atmosphere occur very quickly after those in the flare, showing that the atmosphere responds rapidly. So if there was a big flare, any serious impacts may happen only 30 seconds after the flare.

Aisling was supervised by Dr. Ryan Milligan from Queen's. He says, "This work really shows just how sensitive our atmosphere is to subtle variations in solar radiation, although what drives these pulsations during solar flares in the first place still remains unknown.

"Aisling's work goes a long way towards understanding the sun-Earth relationship by studying them as an interconnected system, and not just looking at either body in isolation."

The Life of Earth

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NASA’s DAVINCI Mission: A Daring Dive Into Venus’ Inferno

BY L. COLVIN, and L. SHEKHTMAN, GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT , APRIL 27, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/nasas-davinci-mission-a-daring-dive-into-venus-inferno/

DAVINCI will take the plunge into Venus’ thick atmosphere, offering a rare look at its ancient terrain and chemical secrets. By studying noble gases and volcanic compounds, scientists hope to uncover Venus’ lost history, including whether it once had oceans. Advanced imaging will provide the first close-up views of the planet’s surface in decades, revealing a world that may once have been like Earth. 

Credit: NASA

NASA’s DAVINCI mission is set to revolutionize our understanding of Venus. This daring expedition will send a probe plunging through the planet’s scorching, high-pressure atmosphere, offering humanity its first glimpse of Venus’ surface in over 40 years.

Scientists hope to unlock the mysteries of Venus’ ancient landscape, explore its towering tesserae formations, and analyze its lower atmosphere for clues about the planet’s past. By studying noble gases and chemical compositions, DAVINCI could reveal whether Venus once had oceans and how it became Earth’s toxic twin. Armed with cutting-edge technology, the mission will brave the planet’s extreme conditions, unraveling a history that could reshape our understanding of planetary evolution.
Unveiling the Mysteries of Venus with DAVINCI

NASA’s DAVINCI — Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging — mission embodies the spirit of curiosity and innovation that defined its namesake, Leonardo da Vinci.

Set to launch in the early 2030s, DAVINCI will explore Venus using both an orbiting spacecraft and a descent probe. This probe will be the first in the 21st century to travel through Venus’ thick atmosphere, descending from the cloud tops to the planet’s surface. DAVINCI is one of three major missions targeting Venus in the 2030s, alongside NASA’s VERITAS and ESA’s EnVision, which will focus on studying the planet from orbit.

The DAVINCI spacecraft will conduct two flybys to study Venus’ clouds and highland regions before releasing a three-foot-wide spherical probe. This probe will plunge through Venus’ dense, corrosive atmosphere, collecting data and capturing high-resolution images as it descends.
Breaking New Ground in Venus Exploration

DAVINCI will achieve several historic firsts, pushing the boundaries of what we know about Earth’s enigmatic twin planet. Here’s what makes this mission groundbreaking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kLfR7yn-4&t=17s

Exploring the Solar System’s One-of-a-Kind Terrain

The DAVINCI mission will be the first to closely explore Alpha Regio, a region known as a “tessera.” So far found only on Venus, where they make up about 8% of the surface, tesserae are highland regions similar in appearance to rugged mountains on Earth. Previous missions discovered these features using radar instruments, but of the many international spacecraft that dove through Venus’ atmosphere between 1966 and 1985, none studied or photographed tesserae.

Thought to be ancient continents, tesserae like Alpha Regio may be among the oldest surfaces on the planet, offering scientists access to rocks that are billions of years old.


By studying these rocks from above Alpha Regio, DAVINCI scientists may learn whether ancient Venus had continents and oceans, and how water may have influenced the surface.

The surface of Venus is an inferno with temperatures hot enough to melt lead. This image is a composite of data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and Pioneer Venus Orbiter. Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech

Photographing One of the Oldest Surfaces on Venus

The DAVINCI probe will capture the first close-up views of Alpha Regio with its infrared and optical cameras; these will also be the first photos of the planet’s surface taken in more than 40 years.

With surface temperatures reaching 900° F and air pressure 90 times that of Earth’s, Venus’ harsh environment makes exploration challenging, while its opaque atmosphere obscures direct views. Typically, scientists rely on radar instruments from Earth or Venus-orbiting spacecraft to study its terrain.

But DAVINCI’s probe will descend through the atmosphere and below the clouds for a clear view of the mountains and plains. It will capture images comparable to an airplane’s landing view of Earth’s surface. Scientists will use the photos to compile 3D maps of Alpha Regio that will provide more detail than ever of Venus’ terrain, helping them look for rocks that are usually only made in association with water.

An artist’s visualization of DAVINCI’s descent probe lying on the surface of Venus. 

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center



Unveiling Secrets of Venus’ Mysterious Lower Atmosphere

The DAVINCI mission will be the first to analyze the chemical composition of Venus’ lower atmosphere through measurements taken at regular intervals, starting from approximately 90,000 feet above the surface and continuing until just before impact.

This region is critical because it contains gases and chemical compounds that may originate from Venus’ lower clouds, surface, or even subsurface.

For example, sulfur compounds detected here could indicate whether Venusian volcanoes are currently active or were active in the recent past. Noble gases (like helium or xenon), on the other hand, remain chemically inert and maintain stable concentrations, offering invaluable clues about Venus’ ancient history, such as the planet’s past water inventory.

By comparing Venus’ noble gas composition with that of Earth and Mars, scientists can better understand why these planets — despite forming from similar starting materials — evolved into dramatically different worlds.

Moreover, DAVINCI’s measurements of isotopes and trace gases in the lower atmosphere will shed light on Venus’ water history, from ancient times to the present, and the processes that triggered the planet’s extreme greenhouse effect.

State-of-the-Art Technology to Study Venus in Detail

Thanks to modern technology, the DAVINCI probe will be able to do things 1980s-era spacecraft couldn’t.

The descent probe will be better equipped than previous probes to protect the sensitive electronics inside of it, as it will be lined on the inside with high-temperature, multi-layer insulation — layers of advanced ceramic and silica fabrics separated by aluminum sheets.

Venus’ super-thick atmosphere will slow the probe’s descent, but a parachute will also be released to slow it down further. Most Earth-friendly parachute fabrics, like nylon, would dissolve in Venus’ sulfuric acid clouds, so DAVINCI will have to use a different type of material than previous Venus missions did: one that’s resistant to acids and five times stronger than steel.

About NASA’s DAVINCI

DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) is an upcoming NASA mission designed to explore Venus’ atmosphere and surface with unprecedented detail. Managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the mission will combine a carrier/relay spacecraft and a descent probe to study the planet up close. Goddard is leading project management, science leadership, systems engineering, and development of the atmospheric probe, supported by a science team drawn from institutions across the United States. The spacecraft itself will be built by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, Colorado.

DAVINCI is part of NASA’s Discovery Program, overseen by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Through atmospheric sampling and high-resolution imaging during its descent, DAVINCI aims to answer key questions about Venus’ history, climate evolution, and potential past habitability.

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Extreme monsoon changes threaten Bay of Bengal's role as a critical food source

APRIL 28, 2025, by Rutgers U.

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-extreme-monsoon-threaten-bay-bengal.html

Although the Bay of Bengal covers less than 1% of the global ocean, it supplies nearly 8% of the world's fishery production. Scientists are looking to the past to predict the effect of monsoons on future marine life there. 

Credit: Kate Littler/International Ocean Discovery Program

New research involving Rutgers professors has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India's summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal's ability to support a crucial element of the region's food supply: marine life.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, was conducted by scientists from Rutgers University, the University of Arizona and collaborators from India, China and Europe. To reach their conclusions, the scientists examined how the monsoon, which brings heavy rains to the Indian subcontinent, has influenced the Bay of Bengal's marine productivity over the past 22,000 years.

Although the Bay of Bengal covers less than 1% of the global ocean, it supplies nearly 8% of the world's fishery production. Its coastal waters support densely populated regions that rely heavily on marine resources for food and livelihoods.

"Millions of people living along the Bay of Bengal rely on the sea for protein, particularly from fisheries," said Yair Rosenthal, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University and an author of the study.

"The productivity of these waters—the ability of the ocean to support plankton growth—is the foundation of the marine food web. If ocean productivity declines, it will powerfully affect the ecosystem, ultimately reducing fish stocks and threatening food security for coastal communities."

The monsoon is essential for providing freshwater to the region, but the researchers found that both extremely strong and extremely weak monsoon periods over the centuries caused a significant disruption—a 50% reduction in food available for marine life at the surface. This occurred because these extreme conditions inhibited mixing between the deep and surface zones of the ocean, preventing nutrients from reaching the upper region where marine life thrives.

With climate change expected to make the monsoon more intense and variable, and those extremes provoking stratification of the ocean layers, the food supply produced by the Bay of Bengal may be threatened, researchers said.

To understand how the Indian summer monsoon and ocean productivity have changed over time, scientists studied the fossil shells of foraminifera—tiny single-celled plankton that live in the ocean and build calcium carbonate shells. The shells preserve information about the environment they grew in, acting like natural recorders of past ocean and climate conditions.

"By analyzing their chemistry and tracking the abundance of certain types that thrive in productive waters, we reconstructed long-term changes in rainfall, ocean temperatures and marine life in the Bay of Bengal," said geoscientist Kaustubh Thirumalai, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona and lead author of the study.

"Together, these chemical signals helped us understand how the monsoon and ocean conditions responded to global climate changes over the past 22,000 years."

The sediments analyzed were recovered from the seafloor by scientists aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program.

The researchers found that the productivity of the Bay of Bengal's waters collapsed during periods of very weak monsoons, such as Heinrich Stadial 1, and very strong monsoons, such as those in the early Holocene. The period known as Heinrich Stadial 1, a significantly cold period, occurred between 17,500 and 15,500 years ago. The early Holocene, a time marked by rapid warming and sea level rise because of melting glaciers, occurred between about 10,500 and 9,500 years ago.

The amount of monsoon rainfall controls the volume of river discharge into the Bay of Bengal. The freshwater significantly changes oceanographic conditions and affects the feeding cycle of fish and plankton. When monsoon rains are too intense, a freshwater layer can cap the ocean surface, blocking nutrients from below.

Without nutrients, plankton growth drops—and with it, the entire food chain, including fish. Weaker monsoons also suppress nutrient delivery by reducing ocean circulation and wind-driven mixing.

"Both extremes threaten marine resource availability," Thirumalai said.

When researchers compared ancient patterns with modern ocean data and model projections, they found an unsettling parallel: Future scenarios project warmer surface waters and stronger freshwater runoff, conditions that match past intervals when marine productivity dropped sharply. Compounding the risk, future winds may not be strong enough to counteract the stratification that suppresses mixing.

Looking at past climate patterns helps scientists understand how the interconnected components and processes that compose the physical Earth, including its atmosphere and biosphere, affect the climate, environment and all organisms over long timescales.

"The relationship between monsoons and ocean biology we have uncovered in the Bay of Bengal gives us real-world evidence of how marine ecosystems have reacted to warming and monsoon shifts and may do so in the future," Rosenthal said.

"These insights can help refine projections and inform sustainable management of fisheries and coastal resources as the impacts of climate change accelerate."

Kaixuan Bu, an assistant research professor with the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick, also contributed to this study.

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New study highlights global aridification, threat to agriculture

APRIL 27, 2025, by K. Rodenmeyer, Mississippi State University

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-highlights-global-aridification-threat-agriculture.html

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A long-term shift toward drier conditions is reshaping landscapes and livelihoods across the globe. Known as aridification, this gradual drying trend now affects 2.3 billion people and 40% of Earth's land, with serious implications for agriculture and water systems—especially in the U.S. From California's Central Valley to the Great Plains, often called the world's breadbasket, farmers are facing tough decisions about what to plant, how to irrigate, and how to adapt to a future where water is no longer guaranteed.

These findings appear in the Nature Water article "Increasing aridification calls for urgent global adaptive solutions and policy action," led by Mississippi State University Associate Vice President and Professor Narcisa Pricope in collaboration with a team of international scientists.

"Mississippi State is leading the way in tackling global challenges with research that delivers real-world impact," said Julie Jordan, vice president for research and economic development. "Dr. Pricope's work exemplifies how our scientists are connecting international science with practical solutions that shape policies and practices to strengthen resilience across the globe."

The research was presented at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, a global platform where science meets policy. There, Pricope and her team helped inform international strategies to address the growing risk of long-term drying—not just temporary droughts, but a permanent reduction in water availability.

"This research has real implications for Mississippi," said Pricope. "When our lands dry out, it's not just farmers who suffer. Water becomes harder to manage, ecosystems get stressed, and rural communities—already stretched thin—face even greater challenges."

The team's work highlights solutions that can help Mississippi and the U.S. stay ahead of the curve, including smarter irrigation strategies, better monitoring through data analytics, growing drought-tolerant crops, and restoring degraded land to retain more water and reduce long-term risk.

They emphasize transitioning from reacting to crises to planning ahead, bringing together water management, land restoration, and farming support into one coordinated strategy.

"Aridification isn't just a global issue with little bearing for our lives in Mississippi and the U.S.," Pricope said. "We need to act now to protect our farms, forests and families."

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Why Aren't Humans as Hairy as Other Mammals? Here's The Science.

26 April 2025, By M. CHIKINA, THE CONVERSATION

https://www.sciencealert.com/why-arent-humans-as-hairy-as-other-mammals-heres-the-science

(Dariusz Grosa/Canva)

Have you ever wondered why you don't have thick hair covering your whole body like a dog, cat or gorilla does?

Humans aren't the only mammals with sparse hair. Elephants, rhinos and naked mole rats also have very little hair. It's true for some marine mammals, such as whales and dolphins, too.

Scientists think the earliest mammals, which lived at the time of the dinosaurs, were quite hairy.

But over hundreds of millions of years, a small handful of mammals, including humans, evolved to have less hair. What's the advantage of not growing your own fur coat?

I'm a biologist who studies the genes that control hairiness in mammals. Why humans and a small number of other mammals are relatively hairless is an interesting question. It all comes down to whether certain genes are turned on or off.

Hair benefits

Hair and fur have many important jobs. They keep animals warm, protect their skin from the sun and injuries and help them blend into their surroundings.

They even assist animals in sensing their environment. Ever felt a tickle when something almost touches you? That's your hair helping you detect things nearby.

Humans do have hair all over their bodies, but it is generally sparser and finer than that of our hairier relatives. A notable exception is the hair on our heads, which likely serves to protect the scalp from the sun.

In human adults, the thicker hair that develops under the arms and between the legs likely reduces skin friction and aids in cooling by dispersing sweat.

So hair can be pretty beneficial. There must have been a strong evolutionary reason for people to lose so much of it.

Why humans lost their hair

The story begins about 7 million years ago, when humans and chimpanzees took different evolutionary paths. Although scientists can't be sure why humans became less hairy, we have some strong theories that involve sweat.

Humans have far more sweat glands than chimps and other mammals do. Sweating keeps you cool.

As sweat evaporates from your skin, heat energy is carried away from your body. This cooling system was likely crucial for early human ancestors, who lived in the hot African savanna.

Humans have an internal cooling system.

 (zenzeta/Canva)



Of course, there are plenty of mammals living in hot climates right now that are covered with fur. Early humans were able to hunt those kinds of animals by tiring them out over long chases in the heat – a strategy known as persistence hunting.

Humans didn't need to be faster than the animals they hunted. They just needed to keep going until their prey got too hot and tired to flee. Being able to sweat a lot, without a thick coat of hair, made this endurance possible.

Genes that control hairiness

To better understand hairiness in mammals, my research team compared the genetic information of 62 different mammals, from humans to armadillos to dogs and squirrels. By lining up the DNA of all these different species, we were able to zero in on the genes linked to keeping or losing body hair.

Among the many discoveries we made, we learned humans still carry all the genes needed for a full coat of hair – they are just muted or switched off.

In the story of "Beauty and the Beast," the Beast is covered in thick fur, which might seem like pure fantasy. But in real life some rare conditions can cause people to grow a lot of hair all over their bodies.

This condition, called hypertrichosis, is very unusual and has been called "werewolf syndrome" because of how people who have it look.

Petrus Gonsalvus and his wife, Catherine, painted by Joris Hoefnagel, circa 1575.

 (National Gallery of Art)

In the 1500s, a Spanish man named Petrus Gonsalvus was born with hypertrichosis. As a child he was sent in an iron cage like an animal to Henry II of France as a gift.

It wasn't long before the king realized Petrus was like any other person and could be educated. In time, he married a lady, forming the inspiration for the "Beauty and the Beast" story.

While you will probably never meet someone with this rare trait, it shows how genes can lead to unique and surprising changes in hair growth.

Maria Chikina, Assistant Professor of Computational and Systems Biology, University of Pittsburgh

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$66,000,000 Problem: Mysterious Parasite Devastates Global Fish Farms

BY KING'S COL. LONDON, APRIL 26, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/66000000-problem-mysterious-parasite-devastates-global-fish-farms/

Scientists from King’s College London and UNIFESP are investigating myxozoan parasites in the Amazon Basin that are infecting over 50% of fish, threatening biodiversity and the global aquaculture industry. 

Their boat-based research lab is uncovering new genetic regulation mechanisms in the parasites, offering hope for gene-based vaccines to combat the £50 million-a-year global losses in fish farming.

Researchers in the Amazon have discovered new genetic mechanisms in fish parasites that could lead to vaccines, potentially safeguarding fish farming and biodiversity.

Researchers in the Amazon are investigating a mysterious parasite that is causing widespread devastation in fish farms across the globe.

The culprit, a group of microscopic parasites known as myxozoa, infects fish with lethal diseases. These parasites pose a serious threat to species such as salmon and trout, leading to global industry losses exceeding £50 ($66) million annually.

In the Amazon Basin, a region renowned for its rich fish biodiversity, an international team of scientists, led by King’s College London and the Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), has found that over half of the fish they examined were infected. This high infection rate endangers local fish farming operations, threatens biodiversity, and impacts recreational fishing.

The problem isn’t limited to South America. In parts of the western United States, some streams have seen trout populations decline by as much as 90% due to similar parasitic outbreaks.

A Floating Lab in the Amazon

To find out more about these parasites, the team from King’s, UNIFESP, Federal University of Western Pará Brazil, University of Zagreb Croatia, University of Cambridge and Natural History Museum London set up a lab on a boat travelling along the Amazon Basin in Brazil where the Tapajós and Amazon Rivers converge, close to the city of Santarém, State of Pará.

They hope that investigating the different ways the parasites control their genes could hold the key to understanding the parasite and devising treatments.

Professor Paul Long, expert in marine biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, King’s College London, said: “We work in the Amazon because the diversity of life in the Amazon basin is undisputed and still little-known. This is especially true when it comes to parasites, which are hidden inside their hosts.

“Knowledge of parasites is fundamentally important for understanding the tree of life. How parasites co-evolve with their hosts and these complex relationships will influence biodiversity as well as ecosystem structure and function.

“To our surprise, we uncovered a new process of gene regulation that was previously believed not to exist in these parasites. Fish farming is a key contributor to global food security. Understanding how genes are turned on and off opens the opportunity to develop gene-based vaccines to control these economically significant fish pathogens.

Climate Change and Future Implications

Professor Edson Adriano, a parasitology expert from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology-UNIFESP, said: “The vast Amazon Basin is home to the largest diversity of freshwater fish in the world. This makes it a perfect setting to study fish parasites.

“Our discoveries about epigenetic processes in myxozoans open new avenues for understanding how the distinct conditions encountered by the parasite throughout its life cycle can affect genetic regulation. This becomes even more important when considering the impact scenarios predicted by climate change.”

Dr Santiago Benites de Pádua, a veterinarian and manager of Brazilian Fish Company, added: “Studies on these parasites are essential for developing strategies to control or reduce their impact on the health of farmed fish.”

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*?? Public Health Alert: Widely Used Drugs Pose Overlooked Threat to Developing Brains

BY GENOMIC PRESS, APRIL 26, 2025

https://scitechdaily.com/public-health-alert-widely-used-drugs-pose-overlooked-threat-to-developing-brains/

Medication-induced disruption of sterol biosynthesis poses serious risks to brain development and function. 

At the center is the cholesterol molecule, essential for neurobiological integrity, flanked by haloperidol—one of over 30 FDA-approved drugs known to inhibit DHCR7. These medications, many administered orally and processed through the gastrointestinal–hepatic axis, begin altering sterol homeostasis at the stage of first-pass metabolism, before reaching the brain. 

This leads to the buildup of 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC), a toxic precursor, and its conversion into highly reactive, neurotoxic oxysterols (top right). 

A DNA strand on the left indicates genetic vulnerabilities that can exacerbate these effects, particularly during neurodevelopmentally sensitive periods (lower right). 

The wide range of implicated medications (upper left) highlights the potential for additive or synergistic toxicity, especially under conditions of polypharmacy.

 Once overlooked, this off-target mechanism is now recognized as an urgent public health concern for developing brains and genetically at-risk individuals. 

Credit: Julio Licinio

An editorial in Brain Medicine calls for urgent action to address the often-overlooked toxicity of commonly prescribed drugs.

A compelling editorial published in Brain Medicine highlights an emerging concern for brain development and public health: the interference of sterol biosynthesis by widely used prescription drugs.

Written by Editor-in-Chief Julio Licinio, the editorial responds to recent findings by Korade and Mirnics. Their research identified more than 30 FDA-approved medications, including commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs such as aripiprazole, trazodone, haloperidol, and cariprazine, that inhibit DHCR7, a key enzyme involved in cholesterol biosynthesis. Disrupting this enzyme’s function may have significant implications for neurodevelopment and mental health.

“This inhibition raises the levels of 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC), suppresses cholesterol synthesis, and generates a sterol profile indistinguishable from that seen in congenital metabolic disorders,” Dr. Licinio explains in the editorial. “This is not a hypothetical concern—it is empirically validated in cell lines, rodent models, and human blood samples.”

The editorial highlights that these disruptions are particularly concerning during pregnancy and other developmental stages, but may have been systematically overlooked in drug safety evaluations. Even more alarming is that combinations of these medications—a common reality in clinical settings—can produce synergistic effects, elevating toxic metabolites to levels 15 times above normal.

“What Korade and Mirnics reveal is especially disturbing in this context,” notes Dr. Licinio. “If individual drugs can mimic a metabolic disorder, what are we to make of their interactions? We are prescribing molecular cocktails with no empirical knowledge of how they alter developmental neurochemistry.”

The editorial points out that approximately 1-3% of the general population carries single-allele DHCR7 mutations that may make them particularly vulnerable to these medications. A single prescription could potentially tip their biochemical balance, with two or more medications sending them into a state resembling Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome, a serious developmental disorder.

Key Implications

Widely used psychiatric medications and other drugs may disrupt sterol biosynthesis, potentially causing developmental harm

Current drug approval processes fail to account for polypharmacy effects, despite their prevalence

Genetic vulnerability in a significant portion of the population increases risk

Developmental vulnerability extends beyond pregnancy to include infancy, childhood, and adolescence

Regulatory changes and clinical practice adjustments are urgently needed

Recommendations for Action

The editorial issues specific recommendations for immediate changes in clinical practice:

Pregnant women with DHCR7± genotype should avoid medications with 7-DHC-elevating side effects

Genetic testing should be considered for women of childbearing age who require these medications

Polypharmacy involving drugs that disrupt sterol synthesis should be avoided during pregnancy

Patients with Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome should never receive medications with 7-DHC-elevating effects

For regulatory bodies and the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Licinio calls for mandatory sterol biosynthesis screening in developmental safety assessments, abandoning “the fiction of monotherapy testing,” and developing evaluation methods that reflect real-world prescribing patterns.

“This is a call to action. Not someday. Now,” concludes Dr. Licinio.

The birth of modern Man

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