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Today we have another photo-and-text contribution from Athayde Tonhasca Júnior, this time about marijuana and its pollination.  Athayde’s text is indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Blowing in the wind

The year 1936 is a landmark in the history of motion pictures: that’s when Reefer Madness was released to American theatres. [JAC: The whole movie is free on YouTube, here.]  The film tells the story of high school students experimenting with reefers (marijuana cigarettes), which spell their doom: innocent boys and girls are dragged into depravity, sexual abuse, organized crime, insanity, suicide and murder. Reefer Madness, intended as an educational feature, was voted by some critics as one of worst films ever made: unavoidably, it has become a cult classic.

The arrest of Ralph Wiley, a murderer who ended his life in an asylum for the criminally insane because of reefer madness © Motion Picture Ventures, Wikimedia Commons:

With time, attitudes towards marijuana changed drastically in some countries, from social acceptance to legalisation, removal from lists of most dangerous drugs, therapeutic applications and a lucrative industry. Revenue from medical, pharmaceutical and recreational cannabis products in the United States is forecast to reach over US$ 45 billion in 2025.

The cannabis plant (Marijuana sativa). ‘Cannabis’ and ‘marijuana’ are interchangeable; here, ‘cannabis’ will be used for the plant, and ‘marijuana’ for its drug product © US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wikimedia Commons:

Legalisation created other equally profitable opportunities: cannabis can be cultivated as hemp, which is a source of food products and a fibre used since ancient times for the manufacture of rope, paper, textiles and many other items. Despite coming from the same species, marijuana and hemp are widely different products. Crops for the marijuana or the hemp markets must contain respectively minimum and maximum levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant’s main psychoactive component – specific thresholds are determined by various local legislations. These legal limits have been a source of imbroglios among authorities and growers, all because cannabis is so good at being anemophilous, that is, wind pollinated.

Cannabis is dioecious – male and female flowers are produced on separate plants. But there’s a quirk in cannabis’ sex life. If a mature female flower is not pollinated, its style and stigma (the pollen-receptive parts) grow and expand in length and girth. The longer the virginity period, the more flowers a plant produces and the larger they become. From an evolutionary perspective, this expansion of female parts could be a strategy for increasing the probability of fertilisation when male plants are scarce (Small & Naraine, 2016). Floral mass has an enormous practical implication: female flowers contain the highest concentrations of THC and other cannabinoids, terpenoids and flavonoids, the secondary metabolites responsible for cannabis’ pharmacological and psychoactive properties.

Cannabis female flowers © Erik Fenderson, CABI Digital Library:

Male plants are not chemically endowed as females, but they present a much bigger problem than having low concentrations of cannabinoids. Being male, they can of course pollinate, and by doing so they can wreck a whole cannabis crop. Fertilised female plants produce smaller flowers with significantly lower levels of secondary metabolites. Since the time cannabis cultivation was solely in the hands of outlaws, growers learned to remove male plants to assure yields and drug potency. Today’s growers may also plant feminised seeds (bred to contain no male chromosomes) or female clones, all to keep a male-free environment. But these efforts may come to nought if a neighbouring farmer decides to go into the hemp business.

Harvesting hemp fibre © John McPartland, CABI Digital Library:

A hemp grower has no reason to weed out male plants; they are equal to females regarding fibre production, and it would be too costly to do so. Unfortunately for marijuana farmers, pollen grains from a hemp crop are likely to find their way to their female virgin plants.

A cannabis pollen grain is about 30 µ (1 μ = 1/1,000 mm) in size, and there are lots of them. A large male plant can produce hundreds of flowers, each one releasing up to 350,000 pollen grains into the wind. A 0.4 ha hemp plot can cover the ground up to 400 m away with 1.7 grains/cm2 per day, or 357,000 grains/m2 over three weeks (Small & Antle, 2003). That means that any female cannabis plant within reach is likely to be fertilised. And “within reach” means a lot of ground, in the range of dozens of kilometres or more for recorded cases. Cannabis pollen from Morocco made it all the way to Spain, over 200 km away (Cabezudo et al., 1997). Even before marijuana and hemp were legalised in America, their pollen, likely originated from wild hemp or illegal crops, made up 36% of all airborne pollen counts in Midwest states (Stokes et al., 2000).

Scanning electron microscopy of fresh (A,B) and dried (C,D) pollen grains of a cannabis male flower © Olejar & Park, 2022:

The contamination of female cannabis plants by dispersing pollen has caused significant financial losses, lawsuits and crop destruction court orders in America (Nimmala et al., 2024). Some state and local authorities are stepping into the melee by banning hemp or marijuana farms, and some farmers are growing their crops indoors with air filtration systems, which increase costs sharply.

The dispersal capability of cannabis pollen is a source of frustration and anxiety to American farmers. But it highlights the efficacy of anemophily, even though it doesn’t at first seem to be the case: this strategy consists of broadcasting huge numbers of pollen grains for the odd chance of some of them finding receptive flowers, events that depend on wind, humidity, rain and temperature. And yet, about 10% of all angiosperms (flowering plants) from a range of families share this apparently wasteful mode of reproduction, which derived from entomophily (insect pollination). That such evolutionary transition happened for so many plants puzzled Darwin: “It seems at first sight a still more surprising fact that plants, after having been once rendered entomophilous, should ever again have become anemophilous“(Darwin, 1876). Darwin himself had an inkling of the reason for that: “If any entomophilous species ceased altogether to be visited by insects, it would probably perish unless it were rendered anemophilous, or acquired a full capacity for self-fertilisation.” Indeed, shortcomings such as absence or scarcity of pollinators, or inadequate pollen deposition, are believed to be the evolutionary driving force towards anemophily (Friedman & Barrett, 2009).

Wind-pollinated plants. Left: common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia) male and female groups of flowers. Centre: staminate (male) flowers of common walnut (Juglans regia). Right: pistillate (female) flowers of common walnut showing the exposed stigmas © Digital Encyclopedia of Ancient Life:

We may think that anemophilous plants are not relevant to insects, but that’s not quite right.  Several species, including important crops, are visited by bees and hover flies for pollen or nectar (Saunders, 2017). As these plants tend to flower earlier than insect-pollinated ones, they are important sources of food during the spring hunger gap, when there’s a dearth of flowering plants.

An early mining bee (Andrena haemorrhoa). As its common name suggests, this is a spring-flying bee that takes pollen from early season anemophilous plants © Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons:

Some wind-pollinated plants take advantage of insect visitors by relying on them to do some of the pollen transfer. These are ambophilous species, meaning they are pollinated by wind and insects. This mode of reproduction could be a stable strategy or an intermediate state from entomophily to anemophily: we don’t know for sure. What we do know is that ambophily is more common than previously thought (Culley et al., 2002). At least 120 angiosperm species – the true number is likely to be much higher – are ambophilous, including plants long thought to be anemophilous and important crop species such as coffee (Coffea spp.), avocado (Persea americana) and oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) (Abrahamczyk et al., 2023).

Common heather (Calluna vulgaris), the dominant plant in most European heathland and moorland, is mainly pollinated by bumble bees, honey bees, hover flies and the wind © Aqwis, Wikimedia Commons:

The difficulty cannabis farmers in America face in keeping pollen out of their crops illustrates the efficacy of anemophily. Traditionally, insects have been considered outsiders from this mechanism of plant reproduction. We know now that plants and insects can benefit themselves and each other from blowing winds.

Scientists have discovered a giant planet orbiting a tiny red dwarf star, something they believed wasn t even possible. The planet, TOI-6894b, is about the size of Saturn but orbits a star just a fifth the mass of our Sun. This challenges long-standing ideas about how big planets form, especially around small stars. Current theories can't fully explain how such a planet could have taken shape. Even more fascinating, this cold planet may have a rare kind of atmosphere rich in methane or even ammonia something we've never seen in an exoplanet before.

California s solar energy boom is often hailed as a green success story but a new study reveals a murkier reality beneath the sunlit panels. Researchers uncover seven distinct forms of corruption threatening the integrity of the state s clean energy expansion, including favoritism, land grabs, and misleading environmental claims. Perhaps most eyebrow-raising are allegations of romantic entanglements between senior officials and solar lobbyists, blurring the lines between personal influence and public interest. The report paints a picture of a solar sector racing ahead while governance and ethical safeguards fall dangerously behind.

I’m sure you are as sick of reading about RFK Jr. as we are of writing about him, but this is the world we live in. We cannot let outrage fatigue cause us to take our eye off the ball. If nothing else, SBM needs to chronical every anti-science move that this administration makes. As most people, and certainly most readers here, […]

The post RFK Jr. Sacks Entire CDC Vaccine Committee first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

We may already have had our first-ever encounter with dark matter, according to researchers who say a mysteriously high-energy particle detected in 2023 is not a neutrino after all, but something far stranger

Welcome to Wednesday, June 11, 2025, and a Hump Day (“Siku ra Hump” in Tsonga). It’s also National German Chocolate Cake Day, a great dessert named after its inventor, Samuel German,—so it’s not a cake from Germany. From Wikipedia:

German chocolate cake, originally German’s chocolate cake, is a layered chocolate cake filled and topped with a coconut-pecan frosting. Originating in the United States, it was named after English-American chocolate maker Samuel German, who developed a formulation of dark baking chocolate that came to be used in the cake recipe.

Here’s one; a slice would be very good with coffee for breakfast:

Tracy Hunter from Kabul, AfghanistanTracy Hunter from Kabul, Afghanistan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also Corn on the Cob Day and Pizza Margherita Day, celebrating the pie topped with tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese.

Here’s some unusual corncobs: glass gem corn, a heirloom variety. These specimens were sent to me by a friend.  The stuff is edible, and can be popped, but I save it because it’s lovely:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Marines have arrived—in Los Angeles.  Fortunately, the violence seems to have abated there. While protests have spread to other cities, fortunately they’re (mostly) peaceful:

After a night of small and mostly peaceful protests in Los Angeles, 700 Marines deployed by the Trump administration arrived in the Los Angeles area alongside about 4,000 National Guard troops. The moves enraged Democratic leaders in California, who say city and state law enforcement departments have been able to handle the unrest, which has resulted in some property damage and injuries.

On Capitol Hill, Representative Betty McCollum of Minnesota, a top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, sharply criticized the decision to deploy troops, calling it “premature” and “downright escalatory.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the deployments, saying in his testimony to the committee that “we ought to be able to enforce immigration law in this country.”

On Tuesday morning, streets in downtown Los Angeles were quiet. Some of the protests in Los Angeles over the last four days, including a rally on Monday afternoon, centered on a group of federal buildings downtown. National Guard troops have been stationed there but have largely stayed in the background of the protests.

The Marines would protect federal law enforcement officers and property in greater Los Angeles, the U.S. military’s Northern Command said in a statement.

The use of military force on domestic soil is rare and is usually reserved for the most extreme situations. The state of California sued to block the use of National Guard troops on Monday. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said that he would sue to prevent the Marines’ deployment.

. . . Protests have spread to other cities, including San Francisco, where Mayor Daniel Lurie said a protest on Monday involving thousands of people was larger and “significantly calmer” than the demonstrations a day earlier, when violent clashes took place. In Santa Ana, Calif., officials said that federal agents used tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets against protesters who threw bottles and rocks.

*Speaking of the above, we now know that some undocumented immigrants picked up in L.A. have already been deported, and in pretty dire ways. I’ve put the scary part in bold:

 Less than 48 hours after Juan Fernando was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his job at a clothing factory, he was transported back to the country he had left behind.

The 23-year-old member of Mexico’s Indigenous Zapotec community had been living as an undocumented immigrant in the United States with his parents for four years. His arrest at Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles on Friday and subsequent removal happened so quickly that his parents said they didn’t have time to get an attorney.

On Sunday, federal authorities dropped him off at an international bridge and told him to cross back to Mexico, his family recounted in an interview with The Washington Post. He told them he thought he had signed a consent to a coronavirus test but may have inadvertently signed off on his deportation instead.

“The way they deported him wasn’t right,” said his father, Javier, 42, who spoke on the condition that only his first name be used because he does not have legal immigration status. He said his son does not have a criminal record. “He is a calm, working man. We are asking for justice because they violated his rights.”

As protests over workplace raids in California’s largest city continued Monday and the Pentagon announced it would be sending 700 Marines to backstop National Guard troops, immigration lawyers, advocates and relatives were scrambling to find information about those detained. Mexico’s foreign minister said four immigrants detained in the raid had already been removed from the United States, a speed that some advocates said was unusual.

The Trump administration has not released a total count of how many immigrants have been picked up in the raids that sparked a wave of unrest in Los Angeles and demonstrations around the country. But as the protests continued, a picture of who was detained was slowly coming together.

The Department of Homeland Security released information on 16 people who they said had criminal histories that included charges or convictions of crimes including robbery, sexual battery and drug possession, according to the agency. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News on Monday that those picked up in the raids represent the “worst of the worst.” But immigrant advocacy groups say they have collected information indicating that more than 200 people were detained and that many do not have criminal records.

Now I’m not sure what “rights” an undocumented immigrant has, but surely they include a right to a hearing before they dump someone onto an international bridge.  And that holds even if the person has a criminal record. We are a country of laws, and even if one enters illegally, that has to be established before you boot someone out.  Most Americans would agree that undocumented immigrants with criminal records should be deported pronto, but I stand by my claim that there should be hearings for all. As for the Marines, I doubt they need them to preserve order, but remember that it’s the crowds who became violent, and blaming that violence on the presence of law officers is not on.

*This is rich (and dangerous): RFK Jr. has removed every member of a CDC panel charged with giving advice on vaccines:

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all the members of a key committee that recommends vaccines, and when and how often adults and children should get them.

Kennedy wrote Monday in a Wall Street Journal opinion article that he would do a “clean sweep” of the panel’s 17 members, all of whom were appointed during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

The panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director about which vaccines children and adults should get. Current members include infectious-disease doctors, pediatricians and epidemiologists.

“The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas,” Kennedy said in a subsequent statement, arguing that the change would help restore public trust in science.

Kennedy had earlier been collecting names for potential new members of the panel.

Public-health leaders, and Democrats, decried the move.

“Unilaterally removing an entire panel of experts is reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful,” said Dr. Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

ACIP members undergo conflict-of-interest screening and are required to recuse themselves from decisions that could present a conflict.

“It isn’t a rubber stamp,” said Kathy Edwards, a vaccine researcher who previously served on the ACIP. “All of these things are meticulously evaluated.”

I believe Edwards.  Vaccination is too serious a matter to make the accusation that these people, who have been vetted, are just giving advice to Big Pharma.

*Greta Thunberg and her companions refused to watch the video of the October 7 massacre (described by the BBC in quotations as a “massacre”), a viewing prescribed by the IDF. I guess they just don’t want to know what happened.  (I’m told they simply closed their eyes during the presentation, which I find odious and reprehensible.) Four of the crew, including Greta, voluntarily left Israel on a plane, while eight others refuse to leave and will be deported:

Activists of the protest flotilla were brought to Ben Gurion Airport on Tuesday morning, ready to depart from Israel. According to the Foreign Ministry, some of the activists will be deported in the coming hours.

“Anyone who refuses to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial body in accordance with Israeli law, in order to approve the deportation,” the Foreign Ministry clarified.

Four of the activists are departing the country, including Greta Thunberg. However, eight have refused to leave and will be transferred to Givon detention facility.

The activists were given the option to sign a voluntary departure form or face arrest after 96 hours. Among those refusing to leave is French MEP Rima Hassan

Hassan has previously drawn wide criticism for her denial that the Bibas family, excluding Yarden Bibas, were murdered, her claim that the October 7 massacre was “legitimate”  and her insistence that Palestinians in Europe should be allowed to join the “resistance.” The German ambassador to Israel confirmed that a representative spoke with Yasemin Acar, a German national, ahead of the deportation. The German activist has previously made headlines for celebrating Iran’s attacks against Israel and for expressing solidarity with Hamas, according to KAN

French officials said that six French nationals were aboard the vessel, and one has voluntarily agreed to leave the country, while the remaining will be deported following a judge’s order in the coming days.

Israeli authorities screened footage of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and other pro-Palestinian flotilla participants upon their arrival in Ashdod on Monday, shortly after the IDF intercepted their ship, the Madleen, in international waters.

According to Defense Minister Israel Katz, the activists refused to continue watching the film after seeing the brutality of the attacks.

“These antisemitic flotilla activists closed their eyes to the truth and once again proved they prefer the murderers over the victims,” Katz said. “They continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, the elderly, and children.”

From the Times of Israel:

“I do more good outside of Israel than if I am forced to stay here for a few weeks,” Thunberg told her lawyers, according to Zedan. “If we choose to stay here against the will of the Israeli authorities and are arrested for a few weeks, it will harm our cause.”

A photo of Greta on the plane, waiting to go home:

Greta Thunberg just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden (via France). pic.twitter.com/kWrI9KVoqX

— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) June 10, 2025

*From the AP’s reliable “oddities” section: an endangered loggerhead turtle, rehabbed after one of her flippers was amputated, was released back into the ocean:

An adolescent loggerhead sea turtle named Dilly Dally crawled into the Atlantic Ocean Wednesday morning, months after having a front flipper amputated at a Florida turtle hospital.

The turtle was brought to Loggerhead Marinelife Center in January suffering from predator wounds to the front flipper. The veterinary crew at the Juno Beach facility assisted in Dilly Dally’s rehabilitation and care.

“Every time we can release a turtle back into the wild is special and not just for us but for all the interns and volunteers and everyone that puts an effort to getting these turtles back out there. It’s always a really special day,” said Marika Weber, a veterinary technician at the center.

Stormy weather on Wednesday almost caused Dilly Dally’s release to be postponed. But they packed the turtle up and drove the short distance to the beach. A crowd of beachgoers cheered as the turtle made its way to the ocean.

A satellite tracking device attached to Dilly Dally’s shell will allow the center and the public to follow her journey.

The center partnered with the Smithsonian to get the satellite tag, which was attached on Tuesday.

Here’s a video of the release. The turtle doesn’t look as if can get around very well. I guess someone made the decision that the turtle would have a better life as a tripod in the ocean than in an aquarium. I hope so, but the satellite tag will tell if Dilly behaves normally.  Remember, when she lays eggs she has to haul herself up on the beach and dig an egg-hole with her flippers:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s doing entomology again:

Hili: There are ants coming out of this tree stump. A: And what are they doing? Hili: They are sunbathing. In Polish: Hili: Z tego pnia wychodzą mrówki. Ja: I co robią? Hili: Opalają się.

*******************

From Things With Faces, cut up lotus root:

From Meow, a special cattuccino:

From CinEmma, an essential item:

Cunk on Islam (30 seconds; h/t Phil):

Masih and Titania are quiet today, but here’s a trans-identified man explaining why he took selfies in the bathroom at Disney world (retweeted by JKR):

He said ‘it’s just a selfie’—as if the women in the background didn’t matter.

Now he claims he’s trying to ‘normalize’ men in the women’s restroom. No. You’re not a civil rights hero. You’re a man violating boundaries and calling it progress. pic.twitter.com/qOgrl0C7b6

— Mattie Watkins (@thepeaklady) June 9, 2025

Apparently a lot of Jews in the UK are contemplating “Aliyah“: the immigration of Jews of the diaspora to Israel (h/t Malgorzata):

Today, I saw the most vivid sign of how bad things have become for Jews in the UK — and most Brits have no idea.

I was invited to an Aliyah Day event in London — a day for British Jews considering a move to Israel to meet Israeli officials and ask questions.

The organizers…

— Elad Simchayoff (@Elad_Si) June 8, 2025

From Malcolm; this kid made $10K by sinking 4 shots, and the last one is a corker:

This kid had 25 seconds to hit 4 shots for $10K… And he delivered.pic.twitter.com/5Elg0tHFXh

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 29, 2025

Two from my feed. A Greta meme, and yes, I think the Israelis gave her a pastrami sandwich!

Post your best Greta memes!
Do it! pic.twitter.com/KPqHO6B5Gx

— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) June 9, 2025

This must have been taken with a drone:

The summit of Everest,

the highest point on Earth above sea level
pic.twitter.com/eOrNENHYRT

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) June 10, 2025

One I reposted from the Auschwitz memorial:

An Italian Jewish boy, only two years old, was gassed together with his brother and mother upon arriving at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-06-11T09:42:27.835Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, via Tori Herridge. There’s a thread of five posts:

Bubble rings blown by whales in an apparent attempt to interact or communicate with humans (as just heard on Radio 4 Today) (a thread with thoughts) 1/5

— Rowan Hooper (@rowhoop.bsky.social) 2025-06-10T06:54:09.860Z

. . .  and a groaner of a science joke:

#booksky

— Bookshelfie (@bookshelfie.bsky.social) 2025-06-09T16:21:25.344Z

An innovative device extracted a small glassful of water from the air of Death Valley desert over one day

Astronomers have pulled off an unprecedented feat: detecting ultra-faint light from the Big Bang using ground-based telescopes. This polarized light scattered by the universe's very first stars over 13 billion years ago offers a new lens into the Cosmic Dawn. Overcoming extreme technical challenges, the CLASS team matched their data with satellite readings to isolate this ancient signal. These insights could reshape our understanding of the universe s early evolution, and what it reveals about mysterious components like dark matter and neutrinos.

By using a clever quantum approach that involves two "hands" on a clock one moving quickly and invisibly in the quantum world, the other more traditionally scientists have found a way to boost timekeeping precision dramatically. Even better, this trick doesn't require a matching increase in energy use. The discovery not only challenges long-held beliefs about how clocks and physics work, but could also lead to powerful new tools in science, technology, and beyond.

About 3 billion years after the Big Bang, star formation exploded across the cosmos. During the era dubbed "cosmic noon.” It was also when galaxies and supermassive black holes were growing faster than at any other time in the history of the universe. Now astronomers have discovered a monster from this frenzied period: a supermassive black hole unleashing jets that stretch over 300,000 light-years into space, revealing the sheer violence of its feeding frenzy.

How can radio astronomers successfully identify extraterrestrial radio signals while discerning them from Earth-based radio signals? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how machine learning could be used to search for extraterrestrial technosignatures while simultaneously identifying radio contamination from human radio signals. This study has the potential to help radio astronomers develop more efficient methods in searching for and identifying radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.

Most exoplanets have been detected indirectly through the transit or radial velocity method. But here's an image of the exoplanet 14 Herculis c captured by Webb. It has been described as a "chaotic" and "abnormal" planetary system and is about 7 Jupiter masses, but with a surface temperature of only -3°C. The discovery offers new insights into how planetary systems can develop in dramatically different ways from our own Solar System.

Astronomers recently used a pair of powerful telescopes to zero in on a cosmic battle going on some 11 billion light-years away from us. The combatants are a pair of galaxies charging at each other over and over again, at velocities upwards of 500 kilometers per second. According to one of the scientists studying the scene, one galaxy is cutting into the heart of the other with a blast of radiation.

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter captured this incredible image of the giant shield volcano Arsia Mons, poking through the cloud tops at Martian dawn. Arsia and the other megavolcanoes on Mars are so tall they're often surrounded by water ice clouds in the early morning. Odyssey is normally staring straight down, so to capture this unique angle, it had to rotate 90 degrees while in orbit so that it could capture a side perspective view of the volcano.

As astronomers found more and more exoplanets in recent years, they've discovered an unusual gap in the population. It's called the Neptunian Desert, a curious scarcity of Neptune-sized exoplanets orbiting close to their stars. Researchers just discovered an exoplanet in the Neptunian Desert around a Sun-like star. Can it help explain the Desert?

Now I know this sounds like a low-budget knockoff of Five Nights at Freddy's, but it's the real deal

The Earth's atmosphere is protected by a magnetosphere, but Mars lacks this protective shield and lost its atmosphere to space long ago through interactions with the solar wind. In a new paper, scientists report that they have directly observed this process of "atmospheric sputtering," watching how incoming ions from the solar wind directly cause neutral atmospheric particles to escape. They found the process is stronger than anticipated, especially in solar storms.

The Sun's surface has unveiled a new secret: ultra fine magnetic "curtains" that create striking patterns of bright and dark stripes across the solar photosphere. Thanks to groundbreaking observations from the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, scientists have captured the sharpest ever images of these previously unseen structures, revealing magnetic field variations at scales as small as 20 kilometres.

Many AI models were trained on the text of books, but a new test found at least one model has directly memorised nearly the entirety of some books, including Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which could complicate ongoing legal battles over copyright infringement

Humans first arrived in South America through a series of extraordinary migrations – and genetic studies now reveal more about how they settled and then split into four distinct groups on the continent