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Scientists believe a dust-filled ring just outside Jupiter acted like a cosmic “planetesimal factory,” producing multiple generations of early space rocks with very different compositions. The discovery may finally explain the origins of several mysterious meteorite types that have survived since the birth of the Solar System.

Scientists used some of the most advanced plasma simulations ever created to uncover how the universe builds enormous magnetic fields out of turbulence. The discovery could reshape our understanding of stars, black holes, neutron star collisions, and dangerous solar eruptions.

Scientists used some of the most advanced plasma simulations ever created to uncover how the universe builds enormous magnetic fields out of turbulence. The discovery could reshape our understanding of stars, black holes, neutron star collisions, and dangerous solar eruptions.

We've discovered large numbers of small rocky exoplanets, but they're at such great distances that habitability is extremely difficult to determine. New research suggests than since Mars is on the edge of being habitable, studying it in detail can shed light on rocky exoplanets. If we can understand things like tectonic activity and atmospheric escape on Mars, we can understand how they may play out on rocky exoplanets.

New research led by Penn State scientists suggests that some of the highest-energy cosmic rays may consist of atomic nuclei heavier than iron and could help narrow down the cosmic sources capable of accelerating these particles.

As part of a commercial partnership, NASA is developing a sophisticated chip that will give spacecraft the processing capabilities to think for themselves.

A team of South Korean scientists has uncovered new evidence that could help explain how Earth’s atmosphere became rich in oxygen, one of the most transformative events in the planet’s history. Researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) report the finding of stromatolites, layered structures formed by microbial communities, within the Hapcheon impact crater on the Korean Peninsula. While the Hapcheon crater is only about 40,000 years old, it shows how stromatolites got a boost from the heat in impact crater hydrothermal systems.

As you may know from following the Botany Pond reports here, Vashti had one brood that vanished from the pond two days after the babies jumped into the water with Mom. I was out of town and nobody has any idea where it went.

About a week ago, another (unnamed) hen jumped down to the ground with nine of her ducklings (I had rescued one the previous afternoon and had it conveyed to a wildlife sanctuary).  Getting that hen to the pond with her babies was tough: she was followed by only three or four, and she tried to go to the Pond the wrong way around the building, which would require that everyone climb the stairs. The ducklings couldn’t manage stairs that big, so I herded the four (or five) around the south end of the building, around the bend, and through the vegetation into the pond.  That wasn’t easy given the intervening bushes. Then I went back to see what was left below the nest. There were five or six ducklings wandering around disco0nsolate, peeping plaintively for mom, and some of them had gotten themselves jammed in the window well. Fortunately, I had my trusty net and captured all of them without undue stress and no apparent injury (I mostly used my hands).

I took the babies around to the pond, placed them two by two on a rock, and their peeping, combined with Mom’s quacking, quickly reunited the brood, winding up with one proud and nine ducklings. It was hard, but I was heartened when the two major drakes in the pond (Armon and his “buddy”, whom he doesn’t like) left the brood alone. But then another drake flew in and the combination of three of them was too much for the mother: the hen walked out of the pond with her babies and into the vegetation on the other side of the south fence.

They did not reappear and I can presume only that they are gone, with the babies probably dead.  This was heartbreaking and I still haven’t recovered. I kick myself because I could have sent every baby to rehab, which would have required breaking up the family.  I made a guess, and it turned out to be the wrong decision–but only in retrospect.

But now I am pretty sure that Vashti and her first brood were also driven out of the pond by those odious drakes. I say “first brood” because Vashti has re-nested, laid seven eggs, and her second brood is going to hatch in mid-June.  This time, if there are too many drakes around, I think the best thing would be to capture the babies and have them taken to rehab.  That, of course, will break up her second family, and I can’t believe that derailing her maternal efforts twice won’t break her heart, in a ducky kind of way. It’s also sad because one of my great joys, and that of the pond’s visitors, is to see a brood of tiny fluffballs turn into full-size mallards, ready to fly away come late summer or fall.

The upshot is that I have photos of the latest brood but am not yet ready to put them up and relive the misery. I will post them as soon as I recover.

In the meantime, it’s sunny and warm, and the five turtles in the pond are busy sunning themselves on the rock.  Here’s a photo from the other day of three of them performing what we call “turtle yoga”: stretching out their limbs and necks to get as much sun as they can.  I explain to some of the Pond’s visitors that they are trying to get their body temperature up after immersion in cold water.

I’m not going to reread this because going over what happened upsets me, but here is Turtle Yoga. Click the photo to enlarge it: This photo was taken with my iPhone, so the quality is worse than usual. The photos that are coming will be better.

A rewrite of quantum mechanics that includes the force of gravity could finally achieve one of physicists’ biggest goals and reveal the ultimate fuzziness of time

Generative AI is transforming the workplace faster than ever, but new research from the University of Vaasa suggests the biggest threat may not be AI itself — it’s falling behind in learning how to use it. Researcher Zhe Zhu found that employees who see tools like ChatGPT and Gemini as helpful collaborators rather than job-stealing rivals tend to be more engaged, adaptable, and optimistic about their careers.

There is currently no good way for astronauts in space to do laundry, but researchers may have finally come up with one: a bright purple jet of microbe-killing plasma

In the age of AI, instant answers to our questions are readily available. But columnist Helen Thomson finds that continuing to encourage those delicious flashes of insight that come from your own thoughts may be beneficial both for your everyday life and your long-term brain health

The antivax movement has a central conspiracy theory, but there is also a central delusion behind MAHA, revealed by a blogger with the 'nym Unbekoming.

The post How Unbekoming! The central delusion of MAHA first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

Could the "Great Silence" be the result of extraterrestrial civilizations dying out before they can make contact, or will they evolve to the point where communication with them is no longer possible?

It’s 2035 and NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter has been “hopping” around the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan for just over a year taking images, scanning pebbles, drilling holes, and analyzing surface material for potential signs of life. You’re at NASA JPL and just moved to Blue Team (12am-8am) from Red Team (4pm-12am), so you’re hyped up on coffee, Red Bull, and will power. It’s 3:30am, you’ve been analyzing data since you clocked in, and you keep discarding what you’ve been told looks like positive signs of life but is more commonly known as false positives. In the meantime, some microbes on Titan that got scanned by Dragonfly keep posing in front of its main camera with signs saying, “We’re here!”

“Peace for our time” was, of course, the phrase uttered by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on September 30, 1938 after he returned from signing The Munich Agreement with Hitler. That treaty allowed Nazi Germany to occupy the Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia, in return for Hitler’s promise to leave the rest of Czechoslovakia—and Europe—alone. That was a lie, of course, and Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II, on September 1, 1939. Chamberlain, and other dupes who believed Hitler, had thought that the treaty would avert war in Europe.  Skeptics like Churchill disagreed, and Chamberlain resigned on May 10, 1940, giving the PM slot to Churchill.

Now we are told by Trump and others that we’re close to peace for our time in Iran; here’s Trump’s announcement, bereft of details, from Truth Social:

It doesn’t say much about Israel except Trump had a “very good call” with Netanyahu. Israel is being shoved aside in Trump’s hell-bent desire to get some kind of peace with Iran. But what kind will we get? We can see more details in The Times of Israel. which partly quotes the NYT (headings below are mine, extracts from the ToI are indented, and my words are flush left):

Uranium:

Iran has agreed to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium as part of an agreement with the US to end the war, two US officials tell the New York Times.

According to the officials, Iran has committed in a general statement to giving up the uranium, rather than reaching an agreement with the US on exactly how it will relinquish it. Instead, the exact details will be worked out during the negotiations that will begin once a deal is reached.

The report comes days after Iranian sources claimed that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, had issued a directive that the near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad.

Iran has a stockpile of more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in its possession, which Israeli officials have said is sufficient for 11 nuclear bombs if enriched further.

Earlier this month, a senior Israeli military official said if the uranium wasn’t removed, the war launched in February could be considered “one big failure.”

More on uranium:

And, reports the Times, the officials say issues relating to Iran’s nuclear program will be put off, to be negotiated within 30 to 60 days.

The Times adds the caveat that it is “not clear if the proposal Iranian officials said they had agreed to was what President Trump was referring to in his post on social media.”

Citing Middle East officials, The Times also says the leaders of Arab and Muslim-majority countries with whom Trump spoke in a conference earlier today told him that they support the proposal and urged him to accept it.

The Strait of Hormuz:

While Iran’s Fars news has derided President Donald Trump’s talk of a deal being nearly done, with the Strait of Hormuz to reopen, three senior Iranian officials tell the New York Times that Tehran has agreed to “a memorandum of understanding that would stop the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.”

The deal would release $25 billion in Iranian assets frozen overseas, the officials are quoted as saying.

The Times says the officials say the agreement “would halt fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

They add that its terms focus “on opening the strait— including lifting the US naval blockade against Iran and allowing free commercial traffic without Iran charging any tolls.”’

. . .Iran’s Fars news agency says the Strait of Hormuz will remain under Iran’s management under the provisions of the latest exchanged text for a deal between Iran and the US.

Fars, a semi-state outlet close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, dismisses as “incomplete and inconsistent with reality” Trump’s announcement two hours ago that the deal was now being finalized and would include the reopening of the strait.

Trump posted on social media that an agreement with Iran “has been largely negotiated.” He specified that the deal would include the opening of the strait, the key pathway for the global oil supply that Tehran has largely blocked since the beginning of the war some three months ago.

Regime change: 

None, of course. Although some in the Trump administration say there has been regime change, all that means is that the Ayatollah Khamenei is dead, his son, the Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, may be alive but isn’t doing much, and military hard-liners still run the country and the war. The Iranian people are no closer to freedom than they were before the war.

Lebanon and Hezbollah:

No information yet; see Segal’s excerpt below in which Iranian sources claim that the agreement would stop fighting in Lebanon (but would presumably not require Hezbollah to disarm).

As you see, not much is clear, and the fate of Iran’s uranium stockpile—the reason Trump says we attacked Iran—remains unclear.

Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal’s post about it is called “The art of a bad deal,” with the subtitle, “Trump’s proposed deal threatens to leave Iran stronger than it was before Operation Epic Fury.”  Excerpt:

t’s Sunday, May 24, and at the outset of Operation Roaring Lion, there were two definitions of victory on the table: capturing Iran’s enriched uranium or toppling the regime altogether. Given that regime change does not appear to be materializing and one of the parties appears hesitant to make the necessary investments for such an outcome, the sole remaining path to victory appears to be securing the uranium.

The most recent proposal—which Donald Trump claims is already “largely negotiated”—seemingly attempts to follow this path. According to a report from Channel 12, the agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of the naval blockade and substantial financial relief. However, the core issues regarding the nuclear program and the extraction of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile would not be resolved upfront; instead, they would be deferred for separate negotiations over a 60-day period. Critically, Senior Iranian sources speaking with The New York Times said the deal would release $25 billion in Iranian assets frozen overseas. They added that the agreement “would halt fighting on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

If the enriched uranium is indeed surrendered to the United States, it is indeed a notable achievement, but there are two caveats:

The first caveat concerns the actual scope and reality of the nuclear concessions. According to current reports, the negotiations slated to follow the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz will focus exclusively on uranium enriched to 60 percent—the roughly 440 kilograms currently believed to be buried beneath the rubble of the Natanz facility. Meanwhile, the tons of uranium enriched to three percent appear destined to remain inside Iran, with any future restrictions on its enrichment left dangerously ambiguous. Compounding this uncertainty, a senior Iranian official bluntly told Reuters today that Tehran has not actually agreed to hand over any material at all, emphasizing that the preliminary agreement does not even formally address the nuclear issue.

The second caveat is procedural, but no less critical. The framework currently on the table is not a finalized treaty, but merely a temporary Memorandum of Understanding meant to serve as a baseline for future talks. All the thorny details regarding the nuclear stockpile are slated to be ironed out over a 60-day negotiation window. The official justification for this delay is logistical—that safely extracting highly enriched uranium from bombed-out, irradiated rubble is a highly complex operation. In practice, however, it is far more likely a calculated delay, offering Tehran an extended opportunity to rest and recover before entering their next phase of nuclear intractability.

Israel has greeted the news with deep skepticism and more than a touch of fear. The reported memorandum makes zero mention of ballistic missile restrictions. What began largely as a defensive shield for Iran’s nuclear ambitions has mutated into a formidable threat in its own right. Even without the ultimate deterrent of a nuclear warhead, an Iranian ballistic arsenal numbering in the tens of thousands is more than sufficient to paralyze any military action against the Islamic Republic. According to Channel 12, this critical issue—whether through an immediate American concession or a simple lack of interest—never even made it to the negotiating table.

The current form of the deal also leaves the Islamic Republic holding another critical asset: the Strait of Hormuz. While the strategic waterway is slated to reopen, it does so not by virtue of an American victory, but rather by Iran’s sufferance. The current framework temporarily ensures toll-free passage, but absolutely nothing in the agreement guarantees that Tehran won’t eventually set up a toll booth—or abruptly choke off shipping the moment they feel the subsequent 60-day negotiations are stalling.

A secondary, but equally pressing concern in Jerusalem is that the regime has not yet fallen. While never explicitly declared as a military objective, regime change has been the unofficial policy undercurrent of the entire conflict. So far, Tehran has successfully managed to cling to power. Yet, senior Israeli intelligence officials maintain that a collapse from within remains a distinct possibility—provided the crippling economic blockade is sustained through the end of 2026. If the blockade and economic warfare are traded away for a partial agreement today, that window permanently closes. Meanwhile, domestic repression continues apace; just this morning, Iran executed a man accused of sending information to the US and Israel during the war. Cutting this deal now would not just throw Tehran a financial lifeline—it would constitute a total abandonment of the Iranian protesters who began this entire conflict.

Segal also discusses Lebanon, where fighting has escalated but Israel has pretty much held its fire until Iran stopped fighting. Tehran wants to link the Iran peace deal to Lebanon, allowing Hezbollah to continue attacking Israel.  Israelis won’t stand for that, or so I think. Segal sums up the deal this way:

For a leader who has spent decades building his brand as the sole guarantor of Israeli security, accepting a deal that leaves the regime intact, Hezbollah armed, the ballistic missile program recovering, and Tehran flush with sanctions relief is electoral assisted suicide for Netanyahu. Hanging in the balance of these negotiations is the fate of more than one regime.

To me, this seems like a bad deal for the U.S. and especially for Israel. Nuclear enrichment could continue with the unenriched uranium possessed by Iran, it could eventually build a bomb, Hezbollah might persist as a threat to Israel, there is no regime change (we’re blowing a chance for one, says Segal), and the fate of the Strait of Hormuz remains unclear. Trump just keeps putting up deadline after deadline and then ignoring them, hoping that something will fall into place.

So I ask readers to weigh in by checking one box in this unscientific poll. I’ve given a deadline, but am just assessing reader sentiment here; so please check a box:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Once again I’ve stolen some photos (with permission) from the Facebook page of Scott Ritchie of Cairns, Australia. Scott has documented a trip to Queensland, and his text and IDs are indented. You can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Artemis Station, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. The name that signifies excellence in Australian birding. This past weekend, I went on a wonderful camping trip with the Cairns Birders, led by Shane Kennedy and Doug Herrington, to Artemis Station. Doug then led us on a drive past Musgrave Roadhouse to Marina Plains. The last time I went up the Cape with Doug, we saw an adult Southern Cassowary with its chick at the top of the Kuranda Range. Well, lightning did strike twice.

Up the cape. It was magic. The weather was great, the sunsets so beautiful. The night sky was full on Milky Way. The sunrises were full of bird song. And the key “lifers”, the iconic Golden Shouldered Parrot (GSP) and the Red Goshawk, were on show. Here are some of my favourite photos from this trip.

My hat goes off to the staff of Artemis Station. Not only for hosting us, but for their heroic conservation efforts to save the last of the “termite” parrots in Queensland. Thank you Sue and Tom Shepherd, who own the station and tend to the parrots.

Adult Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius). Great way to start the trip!:

And his chick!:

Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) were common, flying around in noisy flocks at dawn and dusk:

 

Galahs, in the outback!:

Patrick of Artemis Station shows us the ant (termite) mound used by Golden-Shouldered Parrots (Psephotellus chrysopterygius). They dig a tunnel in the mound. An electric fence barrier us used to keep out marauding snakes and monitor lizard. Great lengths are taken to maximise survival and production of these critically endangered birds.

The ant hill also has interesting camouflaged invertebrates, such as this cicada:

Female and male Golden-Shouldered Parrots (GSP) at a feeding station. Wild birds are provided with a feeding station of grass seeds to enhance survival:

An immature male GSP flies past a trail camera at the feeding station. They keep an eye out for predators, and to monitor bird health and numbers:

Another critically endangered bird, the Red Goshawk (Erythrotriorchis radiatus), also lives in Cape York. A male goshawk keeps a sharp eye on his partner:

. . .who is building a nest for the seasons brood:

“What do you think, is it sturdy enough?”:

 

We were greeted at the campsite by an Australian Boobook (Ninox boobook):

This cute owl kept a close eye on us for 2 nights.:

An Australian Hobby (Falco longipennis), a species of falcon, was seen regularly at a nearby pond:

Its long wings enable it to really crank it up!:

It seems having real-world responsibility has taught Dr. Jay Bhattacharya a valuable lesson- it’s better to try to stop dangerous viruses rather than play catch-up after a lot of people have already died.

The post My Sincere Message to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Welcome Aboard and Good Luck. We Are Rooting for Your Success. first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

By analyzing over 400,000 Reddit posts, researchers discovered that users of popular GLP-1 weight-loss drugs frequently discussed unexpected symptoms like menstrual irregularities, chills, and hot flashes. The findings suggest AI could turn social media into a powerful early-warning system for spotting side effects that clinical trials may miss.

A mysterious particle from deep space has scientists buzzing after the most energetic neutrino ever detected slammed through the Mediterranean Sea. Now, researchers think they may have identified the cosmic “culprits” behind it: blazars — supermassive black holes blasting jets of matter straight toward Earth.