Science

A Dazzling First on Neptune: Auroras Discovered!

The Universe's Infancy – What Happened in the First Seconds?

How Did Everything Begin? – The Big Bang Theory

Draft pre-print of Infomatics Chapter 7, a graduate-level study of information-theoretic principles applicable to classical and quantum physics paradigms. Full working draft at https://qnfo.org/releases/2025/Infomatics/Infomatics

GENEVA (AP) — Top minds at the world’s largest atom smasher have released a blueprint for a much bigger successor that could vastly improve research into the remaining enigmas of physics.

Andi's Writeup

Andi's writeup

Andi's Writeup

This article reports new scientific research into a Neanderthal-Human hybrid child.

How bad can a solar storm be? Just ask a tree. Unlike human records, which go back hundreds of years, trees can remember solar storms for millennia.

Abstract: Evolution in profound darkness often leads to predictable, convergent traits, such as the loss of vision. Yet, the consequences of such repeated evolutionary experiments remain obscure, especially regarding fundamental regulatory behaviors like circadian rhythms. We studied circadian clocks of blind cave spiders and their sighted relatives. In the field, cave spiders exhibit low per expression and maintain constant activity levels. Curiously, their clocks are not permanently lost; exposure to monochromatic blue light restores both circadian gene expression and behavioral rhythms. Conversely, blocking blue light in sighted relatives induces an arrhythmic “cave phenotype.” Our RNA interference experiments suggest that clock genes regulate the rhythmicity of the huddle response, establishing a link between circadian gene networks and this behavioral rhythm. We demonstrate that circadian regulation is readily toggled and may play a latent role, even in constant darkness. Overall, our study expands understanding of circadian clock variations and paves the way for future research on the maintenance of silent phenotypes.

Abstract: Experiencing negative content through art has a unique power to transform our perceptions and foster engagement. While this idea has been widely discussed, empirical evidence is scarce, since experimental testing of art experiences poses significant challenges. Here, we aimed to fill this gap by quantifying and comparing individuals’ preference for engaging with art and nonart depicting matched negative content via two behavioral measures: the choice to engage vs. avoid and the duration of engagement.

However, the authors observed that some of these antibody responses in the skin originated from de novo germinal center–like structures that centered around hair follicles. Thus, the skin has the capacity to independently facilitate B cell maturation and generate an immune response to bacterial colonization.

North America’s largest bird disappeared from the wild in the late 1980s. Reintroduction work in the United States and Mexico has brought this huge vulture back to the skies. This is the story of its comeback.

We all encounter gels in daily life – from the soft, sticky substances you put in your hair, to the jelly-like components in various foodstuffs. While human skin shares gel-like characteristics, it has unique qualities that are very hard to replicate. It combines high stiffness with flexibility, and it has remarkable self-healing capabilities, often healing completely within 24 hours after injury.

A study led by Dr. Rodrigo Quian Quiroga has demonstrated how neurons in the human brain generate memories and establish narratives. The research is published in the journal Cell Reports.

This from the same guys who got neurons in a petri dish to successfully play pong. The CL1 is a box with biological neurons inside that can be controlled and programmed with an API. They've been working on this for quite a while and just made their first public release.

A bone marrow transplant process co-developed by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center is safe and curative for adults with sickle cell disease, according to results of a trial completed at Johns Hopkins and about 20 additional cancer centers nationwide and in London. The treatment, available at multiple U.S. medical centers, is a viable and less costly alternative to recently approved gene therapy products for sickle cell disease, the authors say.

A new resource from the Gene Ontology Consortium, a comprehensive encyclopedia of the known functions of all protein-coding human genes, has just been completed and released on a new website. For the first time, researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and other institutions used large-scale evolutionary modeling to integrate data on human genes with genetic data collected from other organisms. This has culminated in a searchable public resource that lists the known functions of more than 20,000 genes using the most accurate and complete evidence available.

https://archive.ph/VQauU

Andisearch Writeup

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For anyone interested in the open access research paper associated with this write up, here you go: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01350-7

A recent study reveals that age plays a significant role in the outcomes of intermittent fasting. Researchers discovered that chronic intermittent fasting disrupted the development of insulin-producing beta cells in young mice. The findings raise concerns about potential risks for humans, especially teenagers.

Andisearch Writeup

Constructing artificial intelligence that aligns with human values is a crucial challenge, with political values playing a distinctive role among various human value systems. In this study, we adapted the Political Compass Test and combined it with rigorous bootstrapping techniques to create a standardized method for testing political values in AI. This approach was applied to multiple versions of ChatGPT, utilizing a dataset of over 3000 tests to ensure robustness. Our findings reveal that while newer versions of ChatGPT consistently maintain values within the libertarian-left quadrant, there is a statistically significant rightward shift in political values over time, a phenomenon we term a ‘value shift’ in large language models. This shift is particularly noteworthy given the widespread use of LLMs and their potential influence on societal values. Importantly, our study controlled for factors such as user interaction and language, and the observed shifts were not directly linked to changes in training datasets. While this research provides valuable insights into the dynamic nature of value alignment in AI, it also underscores limitations, including the challenge of isolating all external variables that may contribute to these shifts. These findings suggest a need for continuous monitoring of AI systems to ensure ethical value alignment, particularly as they increasingly integrate into human decision-making and knowledge systems.

N=133,000 over 40 year time period

Researchers have unveiled the precise brain mechanisms that enable animals to overcome instinctive fears. The study in mice could have implications for developing therapeutics for fear-related disorders such as phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A research group at Umeå University has developed new advanced light-controlled tools that enable precise control of proteins in real time in living cells. This groundbreaking research opens doors to new methods for studying complex processes in cells and could pave the way for significant advances in medicine and synthetic biology.

A research team at KAIST has identified the core gene expression networks regulated by key proteins that fundamentally drive phenomena such as cancer development, metastasis, tissue differentiation from stem cells, and neural activation processes. This discovery lays the foundation for developing innovative therapeutic technologies.

In a study published today in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions, Dr Underwood, together with Dr Ilianna Lourida from the University of Exeter, led a systematic review of existing scientific literature to look for evidence of prescription drugs that altered the risk of dementia. Systematic reviews allow researchers to pool several studies where evidence may be weak, or even contradictory, to arrive at more robust conclusions.

Human ancestors like Australopithecus – which lived around 3.5 million years ago in southern Africa – ate very little to no meat, according to new research published in the scientific journal Science. This conclusion comes from an analysis of nitrogen isotope isotopes in the fossilized tooth enamel of seven Australopithecus individuals. The data revealed that these early hominins primarily relied on plant-based diets, with little to no evidence of meat consumption.

As far as we've been able to tell, all matter in the universe comes in just of two distinct types: fermions (particles that make stuff)and bosons (particles that mediate a force).

I missed this before, but apparently we're now nearly a year into Merck and Moderna's Phase-3 trials of a novel mRNA vaccine (mRNA-4157) in combination with Keytruda to slow or halt aggressive melanoma growth. (press release), and about 4 months into a similar Phase 3 trial of the same drug combo for small cell lung cancer (press release). Here's hoping that 2025 is the year we cure (some kinds of) cancer!

Professor Sangmin Lee from POSTECH’s Department of Chemical Engineering, in collaboration with 2024 Nobel Chemistry Laureate Professor David Baker from the University of Washington, has developed an innovative therapeutic platform by mimicking the intricate structures of viruses using artificial intelligence (AI). Their pioneering research was published in Nature on December 18 (local time).

A ground squirrel with cheeks stuffed with nuts, seeds or grains, is a common sight. But a new study provides the first evidence that California ground squirrels also hunt, kill and eat voles. The study, led by the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and the University of California, Davis, is the first to chronicle widespread carnivorous behavior among squirrels.

A new study reveals the secret to the antioxidant that allows the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans to withstand radiation doses 28,000 times greater than what would kill a human.

A new class of magnetism called altermagnetism has been imaged for the first time in a new study. The findings could lead to the development of new magnetic memory devices with the potential to increase operation speeds of up to a thousand times.

Abstract:

More than a million years ago, on a hot savannah teeming with wildlife near the shore of what would someday become Lake Turkana in Kenya, two completely different species of hominins may have passed each other as they scavenged for food.

Short explanation by Andi

I like the idea that it might become regular maintenance to get our brains unclogged.

I'm not familiar with eLife but this publication model is crazy. (They aren't giving editors the choice to reject/publish -it's all published with open access reviews and an article classification by the editors of general quality (based on reviews). Surprising that they didn't see a change in volume or submissions or decline in reviews.