A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society points to a more skillful removal of skulls as part of an unknown ritual, instead of a violent decapitation by an enemy. 

The large Neolithic settlement at Vráble is one of the most important excavation sites of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe. The LBK first arose around 5500 BCE and lasted until roughly 4500 BCE. Archaeologists consider the LBK one of Europe’s earliest farming cultures that moved along the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to more settled agricultural communities.

Researchers from Kiel University in Germany and the Slovakian Academy of Sciences in Nitra have been investigating the region since 2012. The site is made up of the outlines of over 300 former houses in three neighborhoods. The settlement existed for several centuries between roughly 5250 and 4950 BCE. One of the neighborhoods was surrounded by a ditch that archaeologists believe served as a border. 

After finding sporadic human remains in early digs, the team found the remains of at least 78 individuals at the entrance to the settlement. The skeletons were not in any discernible order and 77 of them lacked a head. The team only found one skeleton of a child with a preserved skull. The initial evidence suggests that not a lot of time passed between death and interment. 

“The features clearly exhibit an intentional manipulation of the bodies,” Dr. Katharina Fuchs, a study co-author and biological anthropologist at Kiel University, said in a statement. “First analyses suggest, above all, that violent ‘decapitations’ were not conducted here, but rather skilful removals of the skulls.”

The meaning behind this skull-removing practice is still up for debate. One thought is that the heads may have been stored separately. This burial practice has not been verified at Vráble, but did occur in other cultures. However, the details of the practices differ greatly between peoples. 

The team believes that this arrangement of body parts may have been one part of a more complex and meaningful practice.

“We must assume that these practices were embedded in completely different contexts of meaning than those of modern societies,” added study co-author and archeologist Martin Furholt. “This is what makes an interpretation of them so challenging.”

Multiple researchers are currently sorting the recovered bones to determine the age at the time of death and biological sexes, and analyzing the cutting marks in more detail. Future studies on the possible impacts of violence and forensic investigations into the decomposition processes are also underway. Additional isotope and DNA analyses should also open a window into the origins, diet, and kinship ties of the Neolithic individuals buried at Vráble.

“But the first results already show that Vráble is an exceptional excavation site,” said Furholt. “It provides us with the keys for the discussion of fundamental questions, for example, how were death and the body understood in the Neolithic and what role did the associated practices play in the social fabric of early farming societies?”

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Piping plovers are small migratory shorebirds. The United States is home to three piping plover populations. One lives along the rivers and lakes of the northern Great Plains, another along the East Coast, and one in the Great Lakes. They weigh about 1.5 to 2.25 ounces and are only 5.5- to 7-inches long, and can be nearly invisible until they sprint short distance, stop, and then tilt forward to pull an insect or worm up from the sand. 

The chicks are also considered precocial birds like turkeys. Within hours of hatching, piping plowers chicks can run around and forage for themselves. 

Despite this independence at a young age, the species has struggled. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists them as Near Threatened, and the Great Lakes population is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Nearly 800 nesting pairs once lived along the shores of the Great Lakes, but that number plummeted to 13 in 1990. According to the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort, the population decline is partially due to nest disturbance and predation as well as habitat deterioration. 

The population has grown to over 80 nesting pairs thanks to their federal protection and conservation efforts. Last year was the fourth consecutive year of growth, with 88 unique nesting pairs recorded in the Great Lakes. 

“It is a joy to observe them racing around in all directions, foraging as soon as they are hatched,” Mary Lundeberg, a photographer, volunteer and co-author of Raised to Be Wild: The Tale of a Great Lakes Piping Plover, told MLive. “Being in the wild with these tiny creatures ignites a piece of the wild in me and brings a smile to my face.”

When observing piping plovers, it’s important to stay a safe distance away for the sake of the birds. Michigan’s Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes recommends using the Rule of Thumb—if you can’t cover-up a bird with your thumb when held at arm’s length, you are too close.

The Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort also likes to remind birdwatchers to watch their step. Chicks don’t observe closed areas, so they could be anywhere on the beach. 

Since the mere presence of a dog can cause them to abandon their nests, keeping dogs on a leash and out of nesting sights is important for the bird’s wellbeing. The plovers often perceive pets as predators, so that heightened danger awareness can make the adults abandon eggs and chicks.

Many Great Lakes beaches will have areas marked off with orange rope or fencing to protect plover nests, with eggs hidden in rocks and sand. Visitors can still walk the shoreline, but are advised to steer clear of the roped off areas. 

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The monumental symbol of ancient Rome is only one example of the surrounding neighborhood’s historical significance. Famous figures including Pompey, Cicero, and Emperor Augustus all lived there, but much of the vital archaeological record remains buried underneath centuries of municipal development. The school, originally built during the late 19th century as a missionary complex, is its own testament to this constant change. Although construction work at the time revealed portions of a large Roman villa home known as a domus, no one conducted extensive surveys of the remnants. Instead, the domus’ true size and condition was a matter of speculation for generations.

Knowing this, local students recently undertook multiple clandestine explorations through passageways underneath the gymnasium and finally confirmed longtime suspicions: an ancient, luxurious Roman abode resides beneath their hallways. After their history and Latin teacher reported the findings to the Special Superintendency of Rome, archaeologists spent months excavating the area earlier this year. Now known as the Domus Liceo Cavour (House of the Cavour High School), is offering experts a remarkable glimpse of Roman life circa the mid-second century CE.

The house is impressively preserved despite its age. Archaeologists documented decorative stucco along the vaulted ceilings, floral wall frescos, and even a detailed mosaic featuring irregularly shaped tiles that were popular with wealthy Romans at the time. An inscription left during the first excavation project in the 19th century reports the home likely belonged to someone in the Umbrius family. Although not much is known about them, they possibly originated in Samnium, an area in south-central Italy near Pompeii.

Archaeologists hope to continue their work sometime in the future, and school officials plan to eventually open the site to the public. Until then, much more of Domus Liceo Cavour remains to be examined—including a fair amount of graffiti from former students and urban explorers.

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Writing in a recent Endangered Species Research paper, the team is the first to verify the Atlantic sturgeon’s thundering. The noise is probably caused by males thrashing—and their swim bladders’ resonance—as they fertilize eggs, according to researchers. 

“It’s almost that you feel it more than you hear it,” Maija Niemistö, a researcher from the New York State Water Resources Institute and co-author of the study, said in a press release. “You can hear these chirps and squirts and bubbles underwater, but this is a different experience entirely. These are ancient fish, and the thunder – it’s almost like you’re brought back in time, because they’ve been making this sound, communicating with each other, for millions of years. It’s awe-inspiring.”

They are also classified as Endangered. In the spring, these giants leave the ocean to swim up the Hudson River to spawn. For sturgeon, this reproductive behavior involves males and females releasing their necessary parts into the water. In other words, the egg doesn’t fertilize inside of the female fish. 

The team eavesdropped on the crucial life cycle process with passive acoustic monitoring. They recorded sound within the waters of the Hudson River with underwater microphones for long periods of time. Though this noninvasive strategy is a common approach in marine and terrestrial research, it hasn’t been used as much in rivers and lakes with more freshwater. 

Now, the team’s discovery of sturgeon thundering provides the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) with an additional way to help monitor and better understand  Atlantic sturgeon behavior. As we frequently report, the more researchers know about a species, the more equipped they are to protect it. 

And the Atlantic surgeon certainly needs it. In the 19th and 20th century, overfishing greatly decreased their populations. Unfortunately, almost 30 years of protection hasn’t helped the species make a comeback. Part of the problem is that female Atlantic sturgeons can wait up to two decades before their first spawn.

“That’s why they’re so susceptible to overfishing,” added Amanda Higgs, also co-author of the study and a fisheries biologist with NYSDEC Hudson River Fisheries Unit. 

Eggs could represent 20 percent of a female’s substantial weight and fisheries were interested in their caviar. “A female was a lucrative catch,” Higgs added, “and so they got wiped out relatively quickly because they don’t have the ability to reproduce and replace themselves quickly.” 

While experts estimate that 6,000 Atlantic sturgeon spawned in its waters before the late 1800s, today less than 700 spawn here. Nonetheless, the Hudson River is home to the species’ largest population. 

Moving forward, the team can listen for previously unknown spawning grounds, enabling the state to deal out protections for these endangered river giants. 

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Along with mosquitos and flies, ticks are among our most disliked insects. However, their infamy comes with a lot of myths, and with tick season in full swing, it’s important to straighten out a few misconceptions. 

False: Ticks can fly

If you’ve heard that ticks can fly and/or jump, you’ll be relieved to know that they can’t. In fact, their legs are pretty unimpressive appendages, according to Escher Cattle, an entomologist at the Regional Government of Cape Cod.

“They have some pretty good grabbers on their front legs and their other legs are pretty decent as well, but really all a tick has the equipment to do is walk around and grab stuff,” Cattle tells Popular Science.. They’re not muscular like those of grasshoppers, for example. As for locomotion more generally, ticks don’t have wings, nor are they aerodynamic. As such, they’re also “not physically geared to be dropping out of trees like some kind of paratrooper.”

While a tick might attach onto an animal that takes it up into a tree and then fall, the chances that the skydiving insect will land on you is infinitesimal, Cattle says. In fact, ticks generally exist beneath an elevation of at most three feet. 

The way a tick actually attaches to a host is by climbing to the top of a plant, sticking its arms out, and waiting for something alive to brush by—a behavior called questing. It does so after sensing chemical cues of something warm, moving, and blood-filled. 

False: Opossums help remove ticks by eating them

Speaking of blood-filled things, one tick myth that Cattle is sorry to dispel is one that paints opossums as tick-eating machines. You may have read that opossums are good to have around because they eat lots of ticks. This popular notion is founded on the results of a study in which researchers put ticks on opossums, among other animals, to investigate how these animals reacted to the pest. 

Because the team wasn’t seeing any ticks dropping off the opossums, they assumed the mammals were eating them all. As of now, there is no direct evidence known to researchers of opossums eating any ticks. 

One similar belief is that birds such as turkeys and guinea fowl eat ticks. While that’s true, they also carry them around, so having one in your backyard doesn’t automatically mean you’ll have less ticks.

True: They can carry disease

What isn’t a myth, though, is that ticks can be vectors of disease. These include Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, ehrlichiosis, and most infamously, Lyme disease. 

The good news is that you can decrease your chances of catching the disease from a tick bite if you remove the tick within 24 hours. But sometimes, tick bites go unnoticed, so it’s important to check yourself when you come back indoors during warm weather. 

Ticks are shockingly cold-resistant, but they usually keep to themselves during the colder seasons. They still can come back out as soon as the sun starts shining—including on those randomly very hot February days. 

True: A ‘dorky’ look helps prevent tick bites

If you do find a tick, don’t try to burn or suffocate it off your skin. Use a trusty pair of tweezers, grip it near the mouth parts, and pull it off. If anything gets left behind, your skin will naturally push it out with some time. If you’re not sure how long the tick has been on you, you should contact your doctor. 

As for tick bite prevention, “I know it looks kind of dorky, but tucking your pants into your socks is a really good tip. Making it so that there are barriers between ticks and your skin as much as possible is extremely good as a strategy,” explains Cattle, who also teaches about tick-borne disease prevention for Cape Cod Cooperative Extension. 

You can also apply a synthetic pesticide called permethrin on their clothes and insect repellant on any exposed skin.

Ticks are “very good at what they do,” he concludes, but “I think adopting just a couple habits at a time really makes a difference.”

The post Fact or myth? Ticks can drop out of trees like paratroopers. appeared first on Popular Science.

Turns out, nobody gets out of that. Animals have personalities, too, and many of the same complex forces that shape our personalities shape theirs.

“They’re not spared,” says Dr. Alison M. Bell, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Illinois Urbana, tells Popular Science. “Life is hard for them, too.”

But life is also “rich,” says Bell, full of ups and downs, wounds and triumphs, just like human lives.

It’s one of those truths that is both surprising and incredibly obvious, especially for those of us with pets. And yet the study of animals’ personalities has faced resistance—in part because accepting it means accepting that animals are far more like us than some are willing to admit.

Personality and social psychologist Dr. Sam Gosling noticed a telling pattern among his colleagues in animal research: On coffee breaks, they’d talk freely and enthusiastically about the personalities of the animals they studied, even their pets at home. Then the break would end.

“They’d finish their tea breaks, put on their scientist white coats, and stop any kind of talk about that,” he says. 

But reluctance to engage with the topic scientifically doesn’t mean the evidence isn’t there. Decades of research across species has made one thing abundantly clear: Animals do have personalities. Here’s what the science has to say about what makes your pet special, whether they’re super smart, a risk taker, or a homebody.

1. Animals are shaped by their early environment

For animals, as for humans, the earliest experiences often form the deepest scars or the greatest strengths. 

Animals are influenced by “the early life environment,” Bell says. “They’re influenced by their early interactions with parents and siblings.”

This principle is perhaps most evident in our pets. Bell cites an example familiar to many of us: the traumatized shelter dog with a troubled past.

“Pets who are coming from an animal shelter, or have maybe experienced abuse, they don’t forget that,” says Bell. “That leaves a lasting effect.” 

Yet many of us don’t extend this understanding to, say, childhood trauma in a squirrel. But according to Bell, the same concepts apply to any animal, wild or domestic. A squirrel neglected by its mother carries that experience forward, just as we do. 

“This principle definitely applies to other organisms,” says Bell. 

2. Genetics are important, but not the main factor 

As with humans, genetics are also an influential force in animal personality. Perhaps you might expect animals to be more genetically hardwired than us, driven by pure instinct and with few individual variations. But according to Bell, genetics accounts for only about 35 percent of animal personality—the same as in humans. 

Teasing apart personality traits that come from genetics versus the environment is easier in animals than in humans, according to Gosling. For example, researchers can swap bird eggs between nests to determine whether chicks end up more like their genetic parents or the birds that raised them.

“Because of the experimental control that animal studies afford, our estimates of these effects can be much more precise than they can [be] in humans,” Gosling says. “In humans, we have to deal with them in the messy world.”

As for which matters more, genetics or environment, the answer is complicated. 

“These studies have shown that there are genetic factors, environmental factors, biological non-genetic factors, and all kinds of other things that influence animal personality,” he says.

3. Personality varies by species

Beyond factors like genetics and environment, animal personality is also shaped by something more fundamental: the species itself. 

As an evolutionary biologist, Bell says she is particularly interested in biological diversity and its role in shaping personality across species.

“What interests me is what are the behaviors animals do that are really, really important for that particular critter, that species?” she says. “If I’m studying a parrot, what’s going to be important is the food they’re eating, the predators they might encounter, their threats, their opportunities, and their habitats. What are the behaviors that matter to that animal?”

The answer, she notes, varies widely depending on the evolutionary needs and challenges of an individual species. Those factors “will be different for a parrot compared to a fish, compared to a whale, compared to a termite,” she says. 

4. Personality is stable, but changeable

Another notable aspect of personality is continuity—the extent to which an individual’s personality remains consistent or changes over time. Bell says animal personality tends to be pretty stable over a lifetime. 

Bell describes a “signature” that persists from the juvenile to the adult stage, even as behavior naturally changes across life stages. In her research on stickleback fish, Bell and her colleagues have observed consistent personality traits in individual fish.

“We can measure them repeatedly,” she said, “and find that the individuals that were risk-takers yesterday are also the risk-takers tomorrow, and next month.”

But that signature is not immutable, says Bell. Experience can alter it. “New environments, social interactions, even changes in health might influence behavior,” Bell says.

Whether animals can change their personalities more or less than humans over a lifetime remains an open question. 

“I don’t see any theoretical reason why we should expect more or less change in humans than in other animals,” says Gosling, though Bell notes that the answer likely varies widely across species. 

5. Human nature may be holding us back

Another factor shaping our understanding of animal personality is surprisingly close to home: human resistance to accepting it.

Part of the problem, according to Bell, is that accepting the concept of animal personality requires a sort of double reckoning: We have to be willing to see ourselves as less exceptional than we thought, while simultaneously being willing to see animals as more complex than we previously believed.

“Both of those things have to happen, and I think that’s challenging to conventional thinking,” she says. 

Why that resistance persists, even in the face of mounting evidence for animal personality, may say more about human psychology than animal behavior. 

“The most surprising thing to me is how surprising it [the fact that animals have unique personalities] is to people,” says Bell. 

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

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It might sound like a Disney-esque solution, but rehabilitation animals won’t start healing until they are relaxed, and these two chicks—just a day or two old—were very stressed. According to Raven Ridge’s Game Warden, a man found them running down the same road where their mother and a sibling were killed. 

Turkeys are precocial birds, meaning they’re pretty independent soon after they hatch. Unlike baby blue jays or robins, turkey and pheasant chicks eat and move on their own. However, they do rely on their mother for warmth and protection. So when these two chicks arrived at the wildlife rehabilitation center in southeastern Pennsylvania, the staff put them in an incubator to keep them warm. 

This particular incubator hosts a third presence. The staff put in a feather duster with the chickens, that they can hide under as if it were their mother. 

“The incubator is nice and warm, which would be just like mom,” Tracie Young, director of the Raven Ridge Wildlife Center, tells Popular Science. “And to cut down their stress, the feather duster is hanging from the inside of the incubator. It’s more natural, more something that they’re going to recognize, and they’re able to hide under it. So it’s just like mom. It’s safety, it’s warmth. And that really does help with these animals in rehabilitation.” 

Interestingly, Young and her colleagues also put pictures of adult turkeys in the incubator so that, in the absence of a real one, the chicks can still see a sort of adult role model. It’s not unusual for wildlife centers to resort to off-beat solutions for orphaned babies in rehabilitation. In 2024, wildlife care staff wore fox masks while caring for a juvenile red fox so that it doesn’t get used to humans. 

Young says that when dealing with one or just a few ducklings at Raven Ridge, they give them adult duck decoys. As for turkey chicks, “a turkey decoy is not going to fit into an incubator,” she explains, so that’s where the pictures come in.

This isn’t the first time the team has reached for the feather duster in such a scenario, nor will it be the last. In fact, the wildlife center also just received another baby bird—its first ever ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus). That means they’ll have to procure another feather duster. 

The baby chicks will likely be at the wildlife center until closer to the fall, when they’ll be returned to the wild. Once the birds become bigger and able to keep themselves warm, the team will transfer them into a larger cage and then outside. For now, however, the featherduster is helping. 

“They were running out from underneath their duster, running back underneath the feather duster,” she says, “but we noticed, too, that after putting the feather duster in they were a lot calmer, they were eating more, and their weight is going up.” 

The post Orphaned baby turkeys think a feather duster is their mom appeared first on Popular Science.

Now, a University of Florida master’s student named Adam Jacobs has built a simulator that clearly visualizes what so many travelers already feel in their gut. Jacobs created a computer model simulating a 186-seat Airbus A320neo and had computer-generated travelers board using three well-documented methods: random, back-to-front, and the lesser-known but academically popular “Steffen method.” Jacobs initially posted the video clip on LinkedIn but it had since gained traction on Instagram and other social platforms. 

The video shows passengers, represented as red dots, making their way through the cabin and sitting in their respective seats. The seats appear as blue squares when they are empty but then turn green once a passenger sits down. Each method plays out at the same time side by side for an up-to-moment comparison. The Steffen method, which prioritizes boarding window seats first, concluded boarding after just 11 minutes and and 16 seconds, by far the fastest of the three. Random seating, which is essentially Southwest Airlines offered until recently, completed in 17 minutes and 59 seconds. 

Loading back-to-front, however, which many intuitively assume should be the most efficient approach, actually performed far worse than the other two, taking 31 minutes and 15 seconds. That sounds bad, but the real-world experience for most travelers is even worse. Numerous studies have shown that front-to-back loading, more or less the standard approach for most airlines, is even less efficient than back-to-front. Zone-based loading, meanwhile, arguably reduces chaos at the gate but does not produce meaningfully faster boarding times.

“Random boarding performs surprisingly well,” Jacobs writes. “People could get to their destination faster if gate agents just said ‘everyone get on the plane now.’ 

Angry at long boarding times? Blame checked bag fees. 

So why is something as seemingly simple as loading people onto a plane so complicated and so frustrating? The answer mostly comes down to two things: the battle for overhead bin space and ever-tightening, profit-maximizing by airlines. Boarding used to be straightforward.  Most carriers would prioritize first class passengers and those needing extra time, then open the cabin to everyone else. But that began to change around 2008, when airlines started charging for checked bags. Checked bags, like so many things that were once included in the base fare, used to be free.

That seemingly small change had ripple effects. Now passengers wanting to sidestep paying for a checked bag had an incentive to bring their bags as carry-ons. But, as any regular traveler knows, there is rarely ever enough overhead bin space to accommodate a bag for every person. That meant a greater interest from passengers to board early. Airlines, seeing untapped demand there, decided to charge fees to non-first class passengers to board early. That evolved into the group and zones and seemingly endless options of prioritized seating. Passengers, trying to avoid paying a checked-bag fee, ended up paying another fee instead to board early. The resulting complexity of all of that translated to longer board times for everyone. 

“Airlines figured out they could make money off of bags,” Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University professor Massoud Bazargan told CNN in 2023. “That killed any efficiency to do faster boarding.”

“Zones reduce congestion at the gate, and they’re how airlines sell priority boarding,” Jacobs said. “That revenue apparently outweighs a few minutes of turnaround time.”

Better ways to board already exist 

Realization of the overhead bag bottleneck isn’t new. In fact, that’s exactly the problem being addressed in the Steffen model featured in Jacobs’ simulation video. The concept dates back to 2005 when a University of Nevada astrophysic professor named Jason Steffen reportedly became obsessed with airline boarding after getting stuck within a jet bridge at Seattle International Airport. Steffen took his expertise in computer modelling, which he has previously used to measure exoplanets, and applied it to airplane boarding. 

After running hundreds of simulations, it became clear that much of the delay was caused by the aisle getting bogged down as passengers tried to stow their luggage. Steffen tweaked his model to specifically solve for that inefficiency. What followed was a system where passengers with even-numbered window seats board first, followed by those with odd-numbered window seats. Next come passengers with even-numbered middle seats, then odd-numbered middle seats, and so on, with all passengers boarding two at a time.

The process looks bizarre, but it works, at least in theory. By spacing out passengers and ensuring everyone can stow their luggage without blocking the aisle, the “Steffen Method” cuts overall boarding time by up to half in simulations compared to front-to-back boarding.

So if it’s so much faster, why isn’t the Steffen method the standard? Part of the issue is that the model doesn’t really account for families or companions traveling together. People sitting together wouldn’t board together under this method, which would likely cause frustration at the gate. More than that though, the real flaw lies in the reality of human behavior. People (especially cranky travellers) simply don’t behave like tidy mathematical models, a point viewers of Jacobs’ post seemed to intuitively grasp.

“It’s much easier to model things when you ignore basically everything and just pretend everyone it [sic]  traveling alone and is of the exact same physical capability,” one user commented on Instagram. 

“Would never work outside the simulation,” another user on LinkedIn wrote. “Sorting the people prior boarding would be a nightmare. Forcing families with small children to separate while boarding is inhumane.” 

Other models have come along other the years tweaking Steffen’s downsides, but they all eventually come face to face with an arguably bigger roadblock: the airlines. When it comes to charging for boarding the cat’s out of the bag. What began as a niche product for a select few looking to get ahead has turned into a booming business. And with the average plane today fuller and more densely packed than ever before, travelers arguably have more incentive than ever to pay a few extra bucks to jump ahead, even if that creates a worse overall experience for everyone.

The science of airplane boarding, in other words, has less to do with models and efficiency and more to do with old-fashioned greed.

The post The fastest way to board an airplane, according to science appeared first on Popular Science.

That hasn’t stopped researchers from successfully spotting the most distant example ever seen. At over 10 billion light-years from Earth, the dormant black hole inside the galaxy MRG-M0138 is 15 times farther away than the prior record holder. As astronomers explained in a study published on June 4 in the journal Science, the far-away subject is now offering experts an unprecedented look at one of the earliest regions of the universe.

To pull off the remarkable achievement, researchers harnessed both the James Webb Space Telescope as well as a technique called stellar dynamics, which utilizes the movements of stars around an invisible black hole to assess its mass. This approach has previously helped identify similar cosmic objects inside galaxies, including our own Milky Way, but never at such a great distance.

Astronomers wouldn’t be able to locate any stars moving around such a far away black hole in most scenarios. However, a galaxy located directly between Earth and MRG-M0138 enabled the otherwise impossible task through a dynamic known as gravitational lensing. Incoming light from MRG-M0138’s stars is refracted around the intermediary galaxy, which then refocuses and enlarges its appearance by 30 times its normal size. This then allowed astronomers to track and calculate the distant stellar dynamics around the dormant black hole.

“By combining JWST data with gravitational lensing, we could peer inside the black hole’s sphere of influence, where its gravity boosts the speeds of stars,” study co-author and Carnegie Science astronomer Andrew Newman said in a statement. “This is one of the best techniques we have to weigh a black hole, so we were excited to extend it to a much earlier period in cosmic history.”

After crunching the numbers, Newman and colleagues determined the dormant black hole has a mass about six billion times greater than the sun, and is observable from an era when the universe was barely three billion years old. That’s around a quarter of its age today, which means astronomers are now glimpsing some of the earliest moments in cosmic history.

Experts have already determined that it’s not just MRG-M0138’s black hole that is dormant—the entire galaxy itself is basically silent, with no recently formed stars. The study authors also theorize the galaxy previously included a quasar, which emits huge amounts of radiation and are some of the brightest objects in the universe.

Moving forward, astronomers can now apply their methodology to other areas of the cosmos, as well as gain a better understanding of galactic evolution throughout the eons.

“By demonstrating the feasibility of such a technique for galaxies in the early universe, we can now undertake a more complete census of how black holes develop over time and infer their role in shaping galaxy evolution,” added study co-author and University College London astronomer Richard Ellis.

The post JWST spots dormant black hole 10 billion light-years from Earth appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s not pretty work, but someone has to do it.

“The tests will help NASA evaluate real-world operation, crew training needs, system reliability, and how wastewater simulants compare with actual human metabolic waste in an analog mission environment,” Ali Alshami, University of North Dakota Chemical Engineering professor and test participant, said in a statement.

Treated astronaut poop will feed lunar plants 

The mobile facility consists of three separate bioreactors, each tasked with handling a specific kind of waste. Feces, urine, and food waste are treated separately because each material contains different levels of salts, solids, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. One reactor processes feces and food waste, converting it into nutrient-rich water that can feed plants. The other two handle urine and greywater from activities like showering and laundry, some of which can be filtered and recycled into  clean drinking water. From an astronauts’ perspective, the experience should feel pretty familiar to life onboard the International Space Station (ISS). They use the toilet as normal, and it automatically diverts waste at the source, routing each type to its corresponding bioreactor.

The whole process takes place in a mobile, 8.5-by-24-foot trailer. In addition to the bioreactors, the unit also houses a vertical garden maintained by the converted wastewater. The goal is to kill two birds with one stone: process waste efficiently and then use it to sustain lunar agriculture. Both are essential if astronauts want any shot at building longer-term habitats on the moon or even Mars. To that end, NASA has ambitions to start constructing a semi-permanent lunar structure or “moon base” by 2029.

Where no one has gone before 

Waste management in space has come a long way since the first moon missions. Back in the 1960s, NASA Apollo astronauts left behind 96 bags of human waste (filled with poop, urine, and vomit) on the lunar surface to save weight. Those bags are almost certainly still there. 

Thankfully, decades of research mean astronauts no longer have to relieve themselves into a bag, at least not most of the time. The most recent Artemis mission featured a fully functional space toilet, though it malfunctioned almost immediately after liftoff.

Recycling wastewater has also seen major improvements. NASA had a breakthrough in 2023 when its life support system aboard the ISS  managed to recover nearly 98 percent of all breath, sweater, and urine brought aboard by the crew. Future astronauts on prolonged spacewalks may also wear this Dune-inspired backpack that filters urine and sweat into drinking water in a single self-contained loop.

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