Cryptostreets

The research offers new insights into the early evolution of animals. Researchers led by Shuhai Xiao at Virginia Tech have discovered a 550 million-year-old sea sponge fossil, shedding light on a 160 million-year gap in the fossil record. This fossil, which suggests early sponges lacked mineral skeletons, provides new insights into the evolution of one of the earliest animals and influences how paleontologists search for ancient sponges. At first glance, the simple sea sponge is no creature of mystery. No brain. No gut. No problem dating it back 700 million years. Yet convincing sponge fossils only go back about 540 million years, leaving a 160 million-year gap in the fossil record. In a paper released June 5 in the journal Nature, Virginia Tech geobiologist Shuhai Xiao and collaborators reported a 550 million-year-old sea sponge from the “lost years” and proposed that the earliest sea sponges had not yet developed mineral skeletons, offering new parameters to the search for the missing fossils.

A new study reveals that oxide membranes can confine infrared light to a greater extent than traditional methods, promising advancements in imaging resolution and applications in photonics and thermal management. Researchers have successfully shown that a particular type of oxide membranes can effectively confine, or “squeeze,” infrared light. This breakthrough could enhance future infrared imaging technologies. These thin-film membranes outperform traditional bulk crystals in confining infrared light. “The thin-film membranes maintain the desired infrared frequency, but compress the wavelengths, allowing imaging devices to capture images with greater resolution,” says Yin Liu, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University.

NASA astronauts on the International Space Station are testing the Boeing Starliner for future crewed missions. Their tasks include emergency scenario preparations and habitability studies, while ground teams handle system assessments to confirm the spacecraft’s performance for a safe return. While orbiting Earth as part of the nine-person crew of the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams continue testing Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as part of its first flight with astronauts. The testing is part of the data collection on the Starliner system for certification by NASA for regular crewed missions to the orbital complex.

Researchers at the University of Bonn have demonstrated that super photons, or photon Bose-Einstein condensates, conform to fundamental physics theorems, enabling insights into properties that are often difficult to observe. Under suitable conditions, thousands of particles of light can merge into a type of “super photon.” Physicists call such a state a photon Bose-Einstein condensate. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now shown that this exotic quantum state obeys a fundamental theorem of physics. This finding now allows one to measure properties of photon Bose-Einstein condensates which are usually difficult to access. The study was published on June 3 in the journal Nature Communications. If many atoms are cooled to a very low temperature confined in a small volume, they can become indistinguishable and behave like a single “super particle.” Physicists also call this a Bose-Einstein condensate or quantum gas. Photons condense based on a similar principle and can be cooled using dye molecules. These molecules act like small refrigerators and swallow the “hot” light particles before spitting them out again at the right temperature.

A study shows that the energy costs of animal reproduction are significantly higher than once thought, mainly due to indirect costs like gestation. This discovery challenges traditional biological models and suggests climate change could further affect reproductive strategies in temperature-sensitive species. A recent study reveals that the energy expended in animal reproduction could be up to 10 times higher than earlier estimates, especially when considering the metabolic costs associated with bearing and nurturing offspring. The findings fundamentally challenge longstanding theories and biological models of animal growth and life histories. The act of reproduction is one of the largest energy investments an animal can make. This investment includes direct cost, the energy directly invested in the offspring themselves, and indirect costs, the energy expended to create, carry, and care for offspring before they are born. While the direct costs of reproduction are well understood, the indirect costs – the metabolic load of reproduction – have not been previously quantified.

Experts from AWI have not discovered any evidence of a global climate tipping point related to permafrost; instead, they observe that permafrost soils are thawing in alignment with global warming trends. Permafrost soils contain substantial amounts of organic carbon and are frequently described as a crucial tipping point in the Earth system, potentially collapsing suddenly and globally once a certain degree of global warming is reached. However, this portrayal of permafrost as a ticking timebomb that activates abruptly at a specific warming threshold is contentious among researchers. A recent study led by the Alfred Wegener Institute reveals that this depiction is misleading, according to the latest scientific evidence. According to their findings, there is no single global tipping point; rather, there are numerous local and regional ones, which “tip” at different times, producing cumulative effects and causing the permafrost to thaw in step with climate change. As such, taking decisive action today is all the more important if our goal is to preserve as much permafrost as possible. The study was just released in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Hubble Telescope Revisits a Star System That is Still Extraordinarily Hot If we could gaze down upon the magnificent spiral structure of our Milky Way galaxy from far above, and compress millions of years into seconds, we would see brief bursts of light, like the flashes from cameras popping off at a stadium event. These are novae, where a burned-out star, a white dwarf, ingests gas from a bloated red giant companion it is orbiting. One of the strangest of these events happened in 1975, when a nova called HM Sagittae grew 250 times brighter. It never really faded away as novae commonly do, but has maintained its brightness for decades. The latest Hubble observations show that the system has gotten hotter, but paradoxically faded a little.

Astronauts Dyson and Dominick will conduct a spacewalk on June 13, streamed live by NASA, to remove faulty equipment and gather scientific samples from the International Space Station. Beginning at 6:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, June 13, NASA will provide live coverage as two astronauts conduct a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station (ISS). The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and last approximately six and a half hours. NASA will stream the spacewalk on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agency’s website.

Researchers developed and enhanced BARseq, a technique to map brain cell connections by gene expression, aiming to improve treatments for neurological conditions. They discovered that blindness alters visual cortex gene expression, and ongoing work seeks to expand BARseq’s capabilities to understand brain connectivity and development. Exploring how different areas of the brain interact could lead to improved treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, and depression. In 2019, as a postdoc in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s (CSHL’s) Zador lab, Xiaoyin Chen helped develop a technique to map these connections. BARseq identifies cells in the brain by the genes they use and traces the connecting neural circuitry. Early versions of BARseq mapped gene expression across thousands of neural pathways, using “barcodes” or short snippets of RNA.

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