The work, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, shows how large libraries of synthetic observations and scalable machine learning can handle uncertainties and reveal robust features in EHT data. It marks the first Bayesian deep learning approach applied to horizon-scale observations.

Who ran the study

The project is led by Michael Janssen at Radboud University and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, together with C.-k. Chan at the University of Arizona, Jordy Davelaar at Princeton University, and Maciek Wielgus at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía-CSIC.

Their networks are trained on GRMHD-GRRT simulations, which model accretion flows and synchrotron emission around black holes. These simulations, used since the first EHT image of M87* in 2019, provide the ground truth for training.

Why this matters

Classical χ² fitting approaches struggle with computational cost and with the complexity of realistic data. ZINGULARITY uses TensorFlow Probability combined with Horovod for distributed learning, enabling hundreds of thousands of training samples and near instantaneous inference once the network is trained.

By working directly with visibilities, rather than reconstructed images, the framework uses the full polarization content of the data. This is crucial for distinguishing magnetically arrested disk (MAD) from standard and normal evolution (SANE) accretion flows, as shown in polarimetric studies of M87*.

How it works

The training library was generated with SYMBA, which simulates the full signal path including atmospheric turbulence and interstellar scattering. Each synthetic dataset includes noise, gain errors, and polarization leakage to ensure the networks learn under realistic conditions.

Validation tests confirmed that the chosen architectures are robust against noise and not overfit to simulation quirks. The Bayesian design provides uncertainties on all inferred parameters and identifies failure modes when observational data fall outside the trained parameter space.

The bigger picture

Next-generation EHT observations will add telescopes and bandwidth, producing even larger datasets. Reproducible, containerized tools like ZINGULARITY will be essential for extracting science from this data flood.

The framework is flexible and can extend beyond black hole shadows. Applications to relativistic jets and other active galactic nuclei are foreseen, and with instruments such as the Square Kilometre Array or ngVLA, machine learning will become central to radio astronomy.

Meet the newcomers: Rhoptropus minimus (a pocket sized, ground runner), Rhoptropus megocellus (a big gecko with jumbo “eyespots”), and Rhoptropus crypticus (a camo specialist on boulders). Together they push Angola’s described gecko tally higher and spotlight the Bentiaba area as a mini hotbed of reptile endemism. In the paper’s time‑tree, several Rhoptropus lineages split during the Miocene, with some divergences tracing back to more than 17 million years.

Who conducted the study?

The work was led by Javier Lobón Rovira at CIBIO–InBIO, University of Porto, alongside collaborators from the University of Michigan–Dearborn, Villanova University, and Nelson Mandela University, with Angolan partners including Fundação Kissama. The paper credits field surveys across southwestern Angola between 2018 and early 2025.

Specimens are housed in collections in Luanda, Porto, and Madrid, and genetic data was deposited in GenBank. The authors followed veterinary guidance for humane euthanasia in line with AVMA guidelines.

What the researchers did

The team combined old‑fashioned herping searching for rocks, gullies, and sand flats with lab work on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. They analyzed 16S, ND2, and RAG‑1 sequences, and built both maximum likelihood and Bayesian trees to test where oddball populations fit.

They also measured body proportions and scale traits, then matched those details to color patterns and habitat use. A dated “time tree” was generated using BEAST to estimate when each branch diverged.

What they discovered

Three populations stood out as full species. R. minimus is tiny (under about 39 millimeters from snout to vent), pale granite in pattern, and races across open gravel and sand; males have four precloacal pores in two small groups. R. megocellus is large, with pairs of bold black ocelli along the back and paired enlarged subcaudal scales, a hallmark of its lineage.

R. crypticus looks like a mashup: a highland style orange head reticulation fading to coastal grays, plus a single row of enlarged subcaudals, and black spotting that separates it from close relatives. All three are restricted to northern Namibe Province, especially around Bentiaba and nearby granite fields.

Where the geckos live

R. minimus favors flat, open sedimentary ground, thick gravel fans and sand sheets dotted with fist sized stones north of Moçâmedes and around Baba and Praia do Soba. At the southern edge of its range near Iona National Park, it gives way to the larger, ground running R. biporosus, and the two have not been found side by side.

R. megocellus and R. crypticus are rock specialists on big, exfoliating granite slabs and vertical faces near Bentiaba and Chapeu Armado. They can occur alongside R. boultoni, using slightly different parts of the same boulder stacks.

How old are these lineages?

Across the species, the study’s dated tree shows a major split separating coastal and highland clades, with many branches forming between the mid and late Miocene. For example, the R. taeniostictus group (which includes R. megocellus) diverged from its nearest relatives more than 17 million years ago, with its two species parting ways sometime between about 4 and 10 million years ago.

The authors note a second burst of speciation within the R. barnardi group home to R. minimus during the late Miocene to Pliocene. That timing echoes broader African diversification pulses discussed in Heinicke et al. 2017 and Plana 2004.

Why is it important?

Taxonomy isn’t just name tags; it maps biodiversity, so land administrators know what they’re protecting. By revealing three local endemics with very narrow ranges, the study flags the Bentiaba coastline as a conservation priority during road building, mining, and tourism growth.

It also helps fix long-standing mix-ups in a species where look‑alikes live shoulder to shoulder. Clear DNA and diagnosable traits reduce misidentifications that have slowed progress on Rhoptropus since the 1990s and sharpen future ecological work.

How the findings fit the bigger gecko picture

Rhoptropus, a group of fast, diurnal, rock accustomed geckos, is concentrated in Namibia and Angola. Angola now emerges as a major hub for the group’s diversity. The Reptile Database lists Angola among Africa’s gecko hot spots, and the new species reinforces that status.

Similar coastal patterns vs. escarpment splits, with episodes of mixing show up in other southern African reptiles. Studies on Afroedura from Angola and Namibia, for instance, found closely related rock geckos carving up habitat across inselbergs and cliffs (Conradie et al. 2022).

Warnings to keep in mind

Two of the newcomers appear confined to a handful of hills. Narrow ranges make species vulnerable to localized threats, from quarrying to off‑road traffic, even if they seem “common” on a single slope. The authors stress that similar habitats are scarce around Bentiaba, which likely increases isolation for R. crypticus.

And while the genetics are clear for the three species described here, the team urges caution on a separate candidate lineage within the R. barnardi group. Some mitochondrial and nuclear signals don’t line up neatly, so next generation sequencing will be needed before any more nameplates go up.

Study: Lobón‑Rovira, Heinicke, Bauer, Conradie & Vaz Pinto, 2025, in Ecology and Evolution.

The twist is how it helps blood sugar. In people with type 2 diabetes, the benefit isn’t just from better insulin sensitivity; it also seems to come from the body getting better at handling glucose on its own what scientists call glucose effectiveness, a fresh angle backed by clamp studies. The perspective in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism lays out that case in plain terms. (APNM article).

Who conducted the study?

The article was led by Kristian Karstoft of Copenhagen University Hospital, with collaborators across Denmark, the UK, and Japan. You can trace his publications and contributions via his ORCID profile.

Co-authors include Shizue Masuki and Hiroshi Nose, whose group in Japan helped shape the original walking-based approach. Their early work set the table for today’s real-world training programs. (Nose et al., Journal of Physiology, 2009).

What the researchers did

The team synthesized evidence from trials in healthy older adults and in people managing chronic conditions, especially type 2 diabetes. A typical session uses at least five cycles of three minutes fast walking and three minutes easy paced walking, adapted to each person’s fitness level with simple tech.

They also compared interval walking head-to-head with steady, continuous walking matched for time and energy. In these matchups, total effort rhythm was not the main thing that changed. (Nemoto et al., Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2007).

What they discovered

After months of training, healthy older adults who used the fast-slow pattern saw roughly a tenth-step bump in aerobic fitness, stronger knees, and lower blood pressure. The steady walkers had minimal impact in the same period. (Nemoto et al., 2007).

In people with type 2 diabetes, randomized trials showed that interval walking beat steady walking for improving free living glucose profiles and body composition, even when weekly time and calories were matched. Mechanical work tied those gains to glucose effectiveness. (Karstoft et al., Diabetes Care, 2013; Karstoft et al., Diabetologia, 2017).

Why is it important?

If better glucose control required big weight loss or long waits, many people would give up. By improving how the body handles sugar directly, interval walking offers earlier gains that can keep folks motivated. That is important for daily life when having diabetes.

There are hints beyond metabolism, too. After cancer treatment and after hip replacement, interval walking has helped people rebuild capacity and leg strength in small trials. (Christensen et al., J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2019; Morishima et al., PLOS ONE, 2014).

Who pioneered the approach

The roots run to community programs in Japan that used a simple beeper worn on the waist to keep walkers on target intensity. Those field studies showed older adults could stick with the plan for months and see real gains. (Nose et al., 2009).

Longer projects linked to higher adherence with larger improvements in risk factors and aerobic capacity. The message was clear: when people keep showing up, the benefits stack. (Masuki et al., Journal of Applied Physiology, 2015).

Safety notes

Interval formats once raised eyebrows for people with chronic disease. Today’s evidence shows they are generally safe when prescribed and progressed appropriately even for people with heart disease and diabetes. (Wewege et al., J Am Heart Assoc., 2018; Hwang et al., Experimental Gerontology, 2019).

Interval walking also runs at lower absolute intensity than many gym-style interval workouts and stays largely aerobic, which helps older or deconditioned walkers ease in without drama. That’s one reason it fits real life settiings.

The adherence hurdle

In tight, supervised studies lasting weeks to months, adherence ranges from eighty to one hundred percent, and the results look great. But in real-world settings especially for people who are overweight or type 2 diabetes sticking with it gets harder.

A Danish rollout used a smartphone app to guide intensity and offer coaching. Downloads soared, but sustained use lagged, and average interval-walking for minutes decreased after the first three months. (Thorsen et al., JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2022).

The tech twist

Apps such as InterWalk personalize brisk and easy targets using a short walking test and phone sensors, then encourage users with prompts and goals. That lowers barriers by turning any sidewalk into a training lane. (Brinkløv et al., BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 2016).

Engagement with goal setting, brief calls, group walks, and timely reminders seem crucial. People get more of the “medicine” that interval walking provides; without them, plans drift away.

Warnings to keep in mind

Most studies ran under careful supervision and tracked surrogate outcomes like fitness, glucose profiles, and blood pressure. We still need longer follow-ups in everyday settings to learn whether interval walking can influence factors such as hospitalizations and complications.

And while safety signals look good so far, clinical trials often exclude the highest-risk patients. That means caution and personalization must be common practice.

What’s next

The task is clear: testing interval walking at scale in communities, building in adherence support, and measuring outcomes are crucial to patients and health systems. If the gains seen in labs and clinics hold up in the wild, this could be a cost-effective backbone of active aging.

The routine is as simple as walking at a fast pace, walking at an easy pace, and repeating. But it might give millions a practical path to better health, one city block at a time.

A new study tested a simple regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) strategy. Conducted in Parma in 2019 and Piacenza in 2022, the trials saved one quarter of irrigation water without reducing yield, boosting soluble solids and dry matter in the fruits.

Who ran the study

The work was led by Andrea Burato, Pasquale Campi, Alfonso Pentangelo and Mario Parisi from the CREA Research Centre for Vegetable and Ornamental Crops, with collaboration from the University of Basilicata and the CREA Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment in Bari.

Their objective was to validate RDI in the northern Italian context, after successful results under southern conditions such as Foggia and Naples. The Po valley, responsible for over 1.7 million tons of tomatoes in 2024 (ISTAT), is now under growing pressure to adapt irrigation.

What does regulated deficit irrigation mean?

Conventional irrigation restores all the water lost by evapotranspiration. RDI, instead, supplies full water until the color-breaking stage and then halves irrigation volumes during ripening, a phase less sensitive to stress.

This technique has been widely tested in Mediterranean crops. Previous reviews showed that deficit irrigation can cut water use by 10–20% without hurting yields. RDI stands out for its simplicity, as it does not require new infrastructure or complex software.

How the trials were run

Tomatoes of the hybrid ‘H1534’ were transplanted in mid-May and grown with drip irrigation under full irrigation (IRR) and RDI schemes. Soils ranged from silty clay loam to clay loam, representing typical Po Valley conditions.

Remote sensing via Planet Labs satellites monitored vegetation indices such as NDVI and SAVI. These indices, widely used to detect stress in tomatoes (Alordzinu et al. 2021), showed no significant differences between treatments, confirming that RDI plants did not suffer visible stress.

What they found

Across both years, RDI reduced irrigation by 25% on average, while maintaining yields of about 100 t/ha. Plant fertility and fruit size were unchanged, indicating that the timing of water reduction was appropriate.

Fruit quality, however, improved. Soluble solids rose by 10%, dry matter by 8%, and yield quality index by 12%. These shifts mean denser tomatoes for processors, less energy to evaporate water during paste production, and better economic returns for growers.

Caveats worth noting

RDI did increase some defects, such as more overripe fruits and blossom-end rot, although sunscald did not increase. The authors note that careful harvest timing is required to avoid penalties from excessive ripening.

Responses may also vary depending on the type of soil and the weather. Earlier Italian trials found that in hotter southern sites, RDI sometimes increased sunscald (Valcárcel et al. 2020). Local calibration of the “color break” trigger remains essential.

Why it matters

Processing tomatoes is central to food supply chains, from ketchup to pizza sauce. In Italy, agriculture consumes over half of the national freshwater (FAO AQUASTAT), making efficiency a top priority.

RDI offers a practical solution. It saves water, keeps yields steady, and improves fruit quality without demanding new tools. For farmers in the Po valley, this translates to resilience against drought and a cleaner balance sheet.

A Study published in Agronomy.

The team administered glyphosate and two formulations. Roundup Bioflow, used in the EU, and RangerPro, used in the US, via drinking water at doses corresponding to the EU acceptable daily intake and no observed adverse effect level. Across all exposure groups, significant increases in multiple benign and malignant tumors were observed, including rare cancers with very low background incidence in Sprague, Dawley rats.

Who ran the study

The experiments were carried out at the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the Ramazzini Institute in Bentivoglio, Italy, under the direction of Daniele Mandrioli and colleagues. The project involved more than a thousand rats and included prenatal exposures starting at gestational day six.

The study is part of the Global Glyphosate Study, a multi-institutional program launched in 2019 to provide the most comprehensive toxicological evaluation of glyphosate. Previous arms of the project reported effects on the microbiome, development and endocrine systems.

What the researchers did

Female breeders were exposed during pregnancy and lactation, and their offspring continued exposure until two years of age. Glyphosate alone and the two formulations were tested at three doses: 0.5, 5, and 50 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day. These values include the current EU acceptable daily intake and the no observed adverse effect level.

Animals underwent full necropsy and histopathological evaluation of all major organs and tissues. The incidence of neoplastic lesions was compared to concurrent controls and historical control databases from the Ramazzini Institute and the US National Toxicology Program.

What they found

The treated groups showed statistically significant increases in leukemia, skin tumors, liver carcinomas, thyroid cancers, nervous system tumors, bone neoplasms, and endocrine-related cancers. Importantly, almost half of the leukemia deaths in exposed groups occurred before one year of age, a phenomenon not seen in over 1,600 historical controls.

Rare cancers, including hemangiosarcoma, malignant Schwannoma, and granulosa cell tumors of the ovary, appeared in exposed rats. The study also noted male mammary gland tumors, an unusual finding in this strain, suggesting endocrine-disrupting effects consistent with earlier reports OECD 2008.

Why it matters

The results strengthen IARC’s conclusion of “sufficient evidence” of glyphosate carcinogenicity in experimental animals. They align with epidemiological studies linking GBHs to increased risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia in farming communities.

The authors stress that glyphosate alone was sufficient to cause many tumor types, while GBH co-formulants may enhance carcinogenicity, particularly in the case of leukemia and adrenal tumors. They highlight that prenatal and early-life exposures are especially critical, supporting the DOHaD concept that chemical exposures during development can have long-term health consequences.

The work appears in Environmental Health.

Subsidence is often slow a few millimeters a year but it adds up and, when uneven, structures can tilt and crack pavement. The authors link faster sinking to higher flood exposure: eight cities with zones subsiding more than 3 millimeters per year have seen more than 90 significant flood events since 2000, a risk that could rise as extreme rainfall intensifies.

How satellites mapped city sinking

Researchers used Sentinel-1 radar satellites and a multiyear interferometric analysis to map vertical land motion across each city at roughly 28-meter resolution. In every city, at least 20% of the area is sinking; in 25 out of 28 cities, at least 65% of the land is sinking. Nine cities recorded area-weighted average subsidence above 2 millimeters per year—small on paper, but that is roughly a tenth of an inch a year and nearly an inch per decade.

Houston stands out: 42% of its land is dropping faster than 5 millimeters per year (about a fifth of an inch annually), and 12% is sinking faster than 10 millimeters yearly (nearly 2 inches per decade). Citywide, 4.7 million people are exposed to subsidence greater than 3 millimeters per year, and 1.1 million face rates over 5 millimeters yearly.

What drives U.S. land subsidence

Groundwater decline is a major factor where aquifers are confined by less-permeable layers. Across wells in these confined systems, changes in water level explained 76% of the variation in non-glacial subsidence; the relationship is weaker in unconfined aquifers, underscoring how geology governs local sensitivity.

The Northeast adds a natural push: long-term glacial isostatic adjustment (the slow settling of land that once bulged near the edge of the Ice Age ice sheet) contributes about 1 to 3 millimeters per year in cities including New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Hot spots include parts of LaGuardia Airport in New York, with additional sinking mapped around Jamaica Bay and Staten Island.

Buildings at the highest subsidence risk

Most properties fall in low to medium-risk categories, however the study identifies more than 29,000 buildings in high and very high risk zones. The differential settling in these zones is measured as angular distortion and raises concern for tilting and structural stress.

San Antonio has the highest share of at-risk buildings (about 1 in 45), followed by Austin (1 in 71), Fort Worth (1 in 143), and Memphis (1 in 167). San Antonio, Austin, and Houston together account for over 82% of the nation’s “very high risk” buildings.

What cities should do next

“As cities continue to grow, we will see more cities expand into subsiding regions,” said lead author Leonard Ohenhen, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Over time, this subsidence can produce stress on infrastructure that will go past their safety limit.”

Remedies depend on the driver: where pumping dominates, cities can curb withdrawals and use managed aquifer recharge; where flood risk rises with lowering ground, upgrades to drainage and green infrastructure can help; and where tilting is the issue, building codes, retrofits, and careful siting matter the most.

Limits, caveats, and next steps

A citywide sinking rate does not mean a building will fail. The authors stress that more than 99% of the 5.6 million buildings they screened fall in low to medium-risk zones; high-risk clusters are localized and warrant targeted assessments.

At broad, county scales, groundwater-use totals did not show a simple linear tie to land motion, indicating that local aquifer properties and well placement matter. The new maps give planners a shortlist block by block of places to monitor, reinforce, or avoid.

The study is published in Nature Cities.

Why Mazon Creek matters

Mazon Creek (pronounced “muh-ZAHN”) is one of North America’s richest windows into the late Carboniferous, preserving delicate tissues inside iron-carbonate (siderite) concretions. The site captures nearly 800 species across plants and animals, offering a rare snapshot of coastal ecosystems from about 310 million years ago.

Refining where those organisms lived and how they fossilized, sharpens the picture of biodiversity and food webs along an ancient delta.

How researchers analyzed 283,821 concretions

Led by the University of Missouri’s Jim Schiffbauer and longtime Mazon Creek researcher Gordon Baird, the team applied modern statistical analyses to nearly 300,000 concretions collected from more than 270 localities.

Much of the material traces to Baird’s Field Museum collection, which totals about 300,000 concretions from roughly 350 sites, according to the university. “We found three readily identifiable paleoenvironments,” said Schiffbauer, whose group also used advanced imaging at Missouri’s X-ray Microanalysis Core.

Three fossil ecosystems, one coastline

The new analysis confirms a nearshore Braidwood assemblage with freshwater organisms and washed-in terrestrial life. It also divides the classic Essex assemblage into two marine communities: a Will-Essex zone marking the transition from shore to offshore and dominated by bottom-dwelling clams and traces, and a farther-off Kankakee-Essex zone rich in cnidarians such as jellyfish and sea anemones.

In other words, the fossils record three ancient worlds—freshwater nearshore, a transitional seafloor, and offshore waters arrayed across a drowning Carboniferous coastline.

Preservation clues in concretion records

Taphonomy the path from carcass to fossil differs across the zones. The authors propose that tougher tissues in Braidwood organisms were rapidly buried, favoring more complete preservation, while Essex organisms with softer tissues lingered longer before burial, allowing more decay. Supporting that idea, the marine Essex sites yield a higher share of blank (non-fossiliferous) concretions than the Braidwood sites.

Carboniferous context and sea-level rise

The new three-part model extends decades of work that distinguished Braidwood (terrestrial and freshwater influence) from Essex (marine). By naming two Essex sub-assemblages Will-Essex and Kankakee-Essex the study ties fossil communities more tightly to changes in water depth and distance from shore during a phase of sea-level rise.

“The different environments affected how quickly and deeply organisms were buried,” Schiffbauer said, a key step in kick-starting mineral growth around soft tissues.

What comes next for Mazon Creek

The team is building a sedimentological model to connect Mazon Creek’s fossil-rich layers to the underlying Colchester Coal, where mining first exposed many of the nodules. That framework could help decode other midcontinent coal basins shaped by abrupt coastal flooding.

As Baird put it, “multiple episodes of rapid coastal drowning events occurred in the U.S. midcontinent,” and refining Mazon Creek improves how similar deposits are read elsewhere.

The study is published in Paleobiology.

The target, blazar PKS 1424+240, looks slow in radio images but blazes in high-energy gamma rays and neutrinos; a new analysis shows its jet is aimed almost exactly at us, making it appear deceptively sluggish while dramatically boosting its brightness.

Why this discovery matters

High-energy multimessenger astronomy neutrinos are “ghost” particles that rarely interact with matter, so tracing them back to their sources has been a central challenge in multimessenger astronomy. PKS 1424+240 stands out: IceCube analyses rank it among the brightest blazar sources of high-energy neutrinos, yet past radio data suggested only modest jet speeds a long-standing contradiction known as the Doppler-factor crisis.

The new result links jet geometry and magnetic structure to the observed neutrino and gamma-ray output, tightening the case that active galaxies can accelerate not only electrons but also protons.

How VLBA exposed the jet core

Researchers stacked and aligned 42 polarization-sensitive images taken with the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) from 2009 to 2025 at 15 gigahertz, effectively creating a deep, high-dynamic-range view of the blazar’s inner few light-years. The composite image reveals a clear toroidal (ring-shaped) magnetic field threading the flow, a signature of a current carrying jet and shows that we are viewing the jet from inside its cone, within less than 0.6 degrees of its axis. In this geometry, relativistic beaming boosts the observed emission by a factor of roughly 30, reconciling the jet’s “slow-looking” radio motion with its intense gamma-ray and neutrino output.

“When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning… a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet pointing straight at us,” said Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. Co-author Jack Livingston added that this nearly head-on view provides a “boost in brightness by 30 or more,” while projection effects make the jet appear slow.

PKS 1424+240 in context

PKS 1424+240 lies billions of light-years away and, at a redshift of 0.605, is among the most distant blazars detected in quiescent very high-energy gamma rays. The VLBA’s ten dishes, spread across the United States from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands, can resolve details as fine as about 50 microarcseconds sharp enough to pick out magnetic patterns near the jet’s base. The data comes from MOJAVE, a decades-long VLBA program that tracks brightness and polarization changes in blazar jets. The team’s stacking approach boosted sensitivity, exposing faint, persistent structures around the core that single-epoch images missed.

“This link between black-hole jets and cosmic neutrinos felt like science fiction when MOJAVE began,” said Anton Zensus, director at MPIfR and a program co-founder. “Today, our observations are making it real.”

How toroidal fields power jets

The toroidal field acts like a compressed spring, channeling and accelerating particles along the jet. Seeing the jet from inside its cone both maximizes the beaming of high-energy photons and neutrinos toward Earth and minimizes the apparent sky motion of radio features precisely the combination that puzzled astronomers for years.

The team argues that such nearly head-on jets may be a distinct, rare class of active galactic nuclei that dominate the brightest gamma-ray and neutrino samples despite their scarcity. Monte Carlo simulations suggest only a few percent of jets are aligned within a degree of our line of sight.

What astronomers will test next

The authors propose targeted searches for other “inside-the-cone” jets and coordinated campaigns that combine VLBA polarimetry, gamma-ray monitoring, and IceCube data to test whether toroidal fields and tiny viewing angles are a common recipe for neutrino production.

Broader surveys within MOJAVE could reveal how often these magnetic rings appear and whether they evolve with flares.

Limits and open questions ahead

This is a single, unusually well-aligned source. While the geometry neatly resolves the Doppler factor crisis for PKS 1424+240, the field structure and beaming levels must be confirmed across a larger sample, and models still need to pin down where and how protons are accelerated to produce neutrinos.Further observations will test whether the same physics holds in less extreme alignments.

VLBA image of the blazar PKS 1424+240, showing an almost perfect magnetic ring in the jet of the black hole. | NSF/AUI/NRAO/B. Saxton/Y.Y. Kovalev et al

Why North Sea sinkites matter

Engineers count on reliable seals and predictable fluid pathways when they inject carbon dioxide underground or tap oil and gas. The newly described structures now termed “sinkites” show that, under the right conditions, younger, denser sands can pierce and undercut older, lighter layers. That rearrangement affects where fluids accumulate, how they migrate, and what can leak.

The authors argue that the process adds a new, large-scale gravitational mechanism to geology, one relevant to both petroleum systems and future carbon storage projects in the North Sea.

How stratigraphic inversion forms sinkites

The team combined modern, high-resolution 3D seismic data with petrophysical logs and cuttings from hundreds of wells to trace the anatomy of the mounds. Their model points to a buoyancy-driven inversion: earthquake-triggered or pressure-induced liquefaction turned overlying basin-floor sands into a dense slurry. That slurry descended through natural fractures and dislodged rigid rafts of low-density, fossil-rich “ooze,” flipping the order of layers similar to a Rayleigh–Taylor instability, when a heavier fluid sinks through a lighter one. The sand bodies that sank are the “sinkites”; the lighter rafts that rose are dubbed “floatites.”

The work clarifies why the mounds consistently sit within a mid-Oligocene to mid-Miocene ooze interval and are complemented above by younger, sand-rich packages laid down in the Late Miocene to Pliocene timing that matches when the inversion likely occurred. In plain terms, the older ooze provided the light, brittle layer; the younger sands provided the weight and mobility.

Scale of North Sea sinkites

The structures are not small. The paper documents kilometer-scale mounds some several hundred meters (over 650 feet) high and tens of kilometers (more than six miles) long embedded in fine-grained strata about 1,000 meters (roughly 3,300 feet) below the seafloor. Earlier ideas for these features ranged from mud diapirs to upward-injected sandstone, but none fit all observations. By tying seismic geomorphology to well logs and mineral fingerprints, the authors conclude that dense sand moved downward, not up, “violating the law of superposition,” the basic rule that younger rocks usually sit on top of older ones.

“This discovery reveals a geological process we haven’t seen before on this scale,” said Mads Huuse, a professor at The University of Manchester.

What’s next for carbon storage

The team is now cataloging additional examples and exploring how the inversion influences reservoir continuity, seals, and fluid escape pathways key questions for siting and monitoring carbon storage. Because sinkites and floatites reorganize the subsurface in three dimensions, the same structures that look like traps on older, lower-resolution surveys may behave differently when reinterpreted with modern seismic and well constraints.

Uncertainties and validation beyond the North Sea

Not everyone will be convinced immediately. The mechanism’s triggers and regional extent, and how often it remodels sealing units, will need testing beyond the North Sea with core data, geomechanical modeling, and targeted stratigraphic dating. “Time and yet more research will tell just how widely applicable the model is,” Huuse said.

The study is published in Communications Earth & Environment.

Pacific sleeper sharks (Somniosus pacificus) are large, slow-moving sharks typically linked to the cold, deep waters of the North Pacific and Arctic. Seeing multiple individuals in the tropical South China Sea extends what we know about their range and offers a rare window into deep-sea food webs that are hard to study. Conservation reviews flag the species as poorly known and vulnerable to decline; the IUCN currently lists it as Near Threatened.

How the deep-sea bait-cam experiment captured Pacific sleeper sharks

Researchers set a remotely operated video rig beside a cow carcass on the continental slope southeast of Hainan and kept cameras rolling for 18 days. In that span, eight distinct sharks appeared and fed around the site, with estimated lengths from about 1.3 to 5.1 meters.

What the video revealed: feeding behavior, queuing, and size-linked aggression

Two patterns stood out. First, sharks appeared to take turns: individuals at the carcass yielded to newcomers arriving from behind, a queue-like behavior rarely documented for this species. Second, body size mattered. Sharks 2.7 meters (8.86 feet) and longer made more direct, aggressive strikes on the carcass, while smaller sharks circled deliberately before feeding; the 2.7-meter split was used only to separate “large” and “small” for analysis.

“Feeding priority is determined by individual competitive intensity, even in deep-water environments,” said Han Tian of Sun Yat-sen University and the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory. The video also captured eye retraction during bites—likely protection because these sharks lack a third eyelid and particles exiting the spiracles, suggesting an auxiliary breathing role.

Pacific sleeper sharks in the South China Sea

All sharks identifiable to sex in the video appeared to be female, based on pelvic-fin anatomy, raising questions about whether parts of the South China Sea act as a seasonal gathering area.

Beyond Hainan, recent observations have pushed the species’ map southward and westward, including camera footage from the Solomon Islands and Palau. Together, the sightings suggest a broader Pacific footprint than once assumed for a shark best known from colder latitudes.

New research priorities for deep-sea sharks in the South China Sea

The most practical question is food. “The highly aggressive behavior of sharks observed in the South China Sea suggests that this region still harbors abundant food sources in the deep sea. But what exactly are they?” said Tian.

The team calls for more baited-camera work across depth ranges to test whether the sharks are occasional visitors or regular residents.

Limitations of the study and next steps for confirming range shifts

This is one baited-camera site with a small sample; it cannot, by itself, pin distribution shifts on any single driver. The earlier 2024 paper documented the first South China Sea record and similar queue-feeding; the new analysis adds finer-grained behavior and size patterns. Multiple teams will need to replicate results across seasons and sites.

The study is published in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research.

Researchers in Argentina have turned the Jamaican field cricket (Gryllus assimilis) into finely milled flour with a robust nutrient profile and workable processing steps adding new data to the growing case for insects as sustainable food ingredients. The team reports repeatable production, a refined way to count protein more accurately, and early kitchen tests suggesting the flour can slot into familiar foods.

Insects raise quickly, need less land and water than livestock, and can help close loops in food systems, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s landmark assessment of edible insects. Yet adoption hinges on safety, nutrition, and practical use in real foods. This paper speaks to all three, with species-specific numbers for G. assimilis a cricket increasingly farmed in Latin America.

How the team made and measured it

Crickets reared under standard conditions were scalded, oven-dried at 130 degrees Celsius for one hour, then ground. The process yielded about 28% flour by mass from fresh insects and produced a very dry, shelf-stable powder (water activity around 0.185). Researchers then mapped composition (protein, fat, fiber, ash, residual carbohydrate), amino acids, minerals, and fatty acids, and probed “techno-functional” traits such as water-holding and oil absorption. They also partially defatted the flour with food-grade solvents to see how lipid removal affects performance.

What they found

Protein, counted carefully. Using amino acid accounting and a species-specific nitrogen-to-protein conversion factor, the authors estimate G. assimilis flour contains about 56.4% protein, with an in vitro protein digestibility of 67.4%. That adjusted figure avoids overstating protein by counting non-protein nitrogen from chitin in the exoskeleton, a known pitfall in insect nutrition studies.

Fat made up roughly one-quarter of the flour, dominated by linoleic (about 34.7%), oleic (27.7%), and palmitic (25.9%) acids. Classic lipid indices landed in favorable ranges: atherogenic index about 0.43, thrombogenic index about 0.93, and a hypocholesterolemic/hypercholesterolemic ratio near 2.38. The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio was high (around 40 to 1), and the flour’s unsaturated fat content means oxidation management will matter during storage.

Fiber and low-digestible carbs

Total dietary fiber was about 8.3%, with very low available (digestible) carbohydrates, reflecting the contribution of chitin an insoluble fiber in insect cuticle.

A 25-gram serving contributed roughly one-third of daily needs for phosphorus and zinc (up to about 48%), almost one-half for copper, and about one-third for molybdenum; iron contributions varied by sex-specific recommendations (about 10–22%). Lead was detected at low levels and, per the authors, below relevant limits; arsenic and cadmium were not detected.

One-step defatting pulled out 37–55% of lipids depending on solvent and subtly improved some lipid-quality indices in the remaining flour. Oil absorption rose across the board useful for flavor retention and mouthfeel while water-holding capacity shifted with the degree of defatting. Color differences were noticeable when petroleum ether or hexane was used, less so with ethanol.

Early food applications

Beyond lab metrics, the group is exploring how the flour behaves in everyday foods. In a university update, project lead Carlos Gabriel Arp said a bread prototype with 15% cricket flour showed “strong potential” to raise the nutritional value of white bread; the pilot loaf had acceptable texture and flavor, similar to whole-wheat bread in look and feel.

Those results were qualitative and early, but they hint at a path to consumer-friendly formats.

Context and scale

Europe’s food-safety authority has already judged the closely related house cricket (Acheta domesticus) safe under proposed uses as a novel food, while noting potential cross-reactivity for people allergic to crustaceans and dust mites. Current European Union authorizations cover a small set of species (including the house cricket, mealworms, and migratory locust), not Gryllus assimilis specifically.

That underscores why species-level nutrition and safety data, like those in this study matter for regulators and manufacturers planning product pipelines.

Caution and next steps

Most results here are from in vitro or compositional analyses, not clinical trials. The high unsaturated-fat content calls for attention to antioxidants and storage, and the high omega-6 to omega-3 ratio is worth factoring into product design.

Allergen labeling will be essential if products reach the market, as advised in European risk assessments for other cricket species. Finally, consumer acceptance and country-by-country regulatory approvals remain practical gates to clear.

The study is published in the International Journal of Food Science and Technology.

References

• Toribio E, Correa MJ, Medici SK, Ferrero C, Arp CG. Characterising cricket flour from Gryllus assimilis: an alternative source of nutrients for sustainability. Int J Food Sci Technol. 2024;59(10):7509–7516.

• van Huis A et al. Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security. FAO Forestry Paper 171. FAO/Netherlands; 2013.

• Turck D et al. Safety of frozen and dried formulations from whole house crickets as a novel food. EFSA J. 2021;19:e06779.

• Rumpold BA, Schlüter OK. Nutritional composition and safety aspects of edible insects. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2013;57:802–823.

• Oria M, Harrison M, Stallings VA. Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. National Academies Press; 2019.