Science

A treasure trove of Cambrian fossils has been discovered in southern China, providing a window on marine life shortly after Earth’s first mass extinction event

Low-Earth orbit is more crowded—and fragile—than it looks. Satellites constantly weave past each other, burning fuel and making dozens of evasive maneuvers every year just to stay safe. A major solar storm could disable navigation and communications, turning that careful dance into chaos. According to new calculations, it may take just days—not decades—for a catastrophic chain reaction to begin, potentially choking off humanity’s access to space for generations.

JWST has revealed a strange early universe filled with ultra-bright “blue monster” galaxies, mysterious “little red dots,” and black holes that seem far too massive for their age. A new study proposes that dark stars—hypothetical stars powered by dark matter—could tie all these surprises together. These exotic objects may have grown huge very quickly, lighting up the early cosmos and planting the seeds of supermassive black holes.

The latest Jesus and Mo strip, called “looks,” came with a message: “It’s World Hijab Day on Sunday! Fortunately, it’s also No Hijab Day, so it balances out.”

And (a recurring theme): Mo himself shows precisely the phenomenon he criticizes.

Here are the guidelines for World No Hijab Day from the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain:

How to take part in No Hijab Day:

• We are calling on women of all beliefs and backgrounds to take off their hijab, and put it on a man on February 1.
• Use this opportunity to spark meaningful conversations about purity culture in Islam, challenge sex-apartheid, and show your solidarity with ex-Muslim, Iranian, Afghan, and other women around the world who refuse to wear the hijab.
• Share your thoughts, experiences, and support using #NoHijabDay and #HijabSilences
• Let your voice inspire real change for women’s rights.

But I don’t want to wear a hijab!

Note that you can support the strip for as little as $1 per month. Also, see the funny FAQ about the strip.

We have one submission, today from Paul Handford, and I’ll show part 1 of his hummingbird photos. Paul’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

While living in south-central British Columbia, I was so fortunate as to have had close encounters with North America’s smallest breeding bird, the Calliope hummingbird, which weighs just short of 3 grams— about 0.1 oz— and is just over 3 inches long.  Its scientific name, Selasphorus calliope, is well merited:  the generic name derives from ‘selas‘ = Gk. ‘a bright flame’ plus ‘phoros‘ = ‘bearing’, ‘carrying’, while the specific epithet references Kalliope, chief of the muses, and goddess of poetry.

First, the female.  Here are four views of her;  in two you can see that the wing-tips reach beyond the short tail;  in others you see the buffy flanks and faintly-spotted throat (the closely similar female Rufous hummer has a tail that extends beyond the wing-tips, and is strongly rufous on flanks and tail).

Then, males.  The brilliant magenta feathers of the male’s gorget are very obvious when the bird faces you.  These feathers can be erected so as to form a ‘sunburst’ ruff, which males will do when engaged in disputes, and in courtship displays (see below):

The magenta of the throat feathers is produced by the phenomenon of interference rather than by pigment and, as mentioned above, this optical effect is striking when directed at the viewer.  But when seen from the side, these feathers lose their brilliance, often not appearing to be coloured at all:

Many hummingbirds are pretty pugnacious, and often engage in quite spectacular combat.  In these next pics, two males try to impress one another, and the ‘sunburst’ erect ruff is visible:

Attitudes toward fossil fuels are sharply and ideologically divided in the US. When asked in 2025 if we should prioritize developing renewable or fossil fuel 6 in 10 respondents favored renewables, but this is down from 8 in 10 in 2020 (according to Pew research). This decline is mostly driven by a flip in the attitude of Republicans, which went from 2/3 […]

The post The Health Effects of Air Pollution first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

BepiColombo is slowly uncovering more and more fun facts about Mercury as it continues its preliminary mission. One of the more interesting things found so far is a magnetic “chorus” that appears similar to a phenomenon found in Earth’s much larger magnetic field. A new paper in Nature Communications from the researchers responsible for the probe’s Mio instrument that is studying Mercury’s magnetic field describes what could be thought of as a form of magnetic birdsong.

Clumps of cells known as organoids are helping us to understand the brain, and the latest version comes equipped with realistic blood vessels to help the organoids live longer

Using a superconducting quantum computer, physicists created a large and complex version of an odd quantum material that has a repeating structure in time

AI may learn better when it’s allowed to talk to itself. Researchers showed that internal “mumbling,” combined with short-term memory, helps AI adapt to new tasks, switch goals, and handle complex challenges more easily. This approach boosts learning efficiency while using far less training data. It could pave the way for more flexible, human-like AI systems.

A repeating fast radio burst has just given up one of its biggest secrets. Long-term observations revealed a rare signal flare caused by plasma likely ejected from a nearby companion star. This shows the burst source isn’t alone, but part of a binary system. The finding strengthens the case that magnetars interacting with stellar companions can generate repeating cosmic flashes.

For the first time, astronomers have captured radio signals from a rare exploding star, exposing what happened in the years leading up to its death. The radio waves reveal that the star violently shed huge amounts of material shortly before it exploded, likely due to interaction with a nearby companion star. This discovery gives scientists a new tool to rewind the clock on stellar deaths. It also shows that some supernovae are far more dramatic in their final moments than previously thought.

How can microorganism communities known as biofilms, and have been hypothesized to be responsible for early life on Earth, be used for space exploration? This is what a recent study published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes hopes to address as an international collaboration of researchers investigated the pros and cons of using biofilms in spaceflight. This study has the potential for scientists to better understand the role of biofilms in spaceflight while mitigating health risks of astronauts.

An international team of astronomers has uncovered the first definitive evidence that at least some fast radio bursts (FRBs) originate in binary stellar systems.

Supermassive black holes grow larger by accreting matter. When they're actively accreting matter they're called active galactic nuclei (AGN). AGN are the most luminous sources of persistent radiation in the Universe, yet they turn on and off as the SMBH passes through quiet and active phases. Astronomers have found one that is just turning on its powerful jets after a long period of dormancy.

Using the South Pole Telescope, astronomers have detected powerful stellar flares erupting from stars near the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. Operating at millimetre wavelengths that can penetrate the dust obscuring our view of the core of the Galaxy, the telescope caught these dramatic magnetic energy releases in one of the most extreme environments in our Galaxy. The discovery opens a new observational window for studying stellar behaviour in regions previously hidden from view and provides insights into how stars survive and behave in the intense gravitational and radiation environment surrounding the Milky Way's central black hole.

The comet bearing Edmond Halley's name may have been misnamed! New research from Leiden University reveals that an 11th Century English monk recognised the famous comet's periodicity centuries before the British astronomer. Eilmer of Malmesbury witnessed the comet's appearances in both 989 and 1066, linking the two observations and understanding they represented the same celestial visitor returning after decades, a realisation documented by the medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury but overlooked by scholars until now. The discovery challenges whether history's most famous comet should continue bearing Halley's name when a Benedictine monk beat him to the discovery by more than 600 years.

Dark matter remains invisible to our telescopes, yet its gravitational fingerprints pervade the universe. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have produced one of the most detailed dark maps ever created, revealing with unprecedented clarity how dark matter and ordinary matter have grown up together. The map shows that wherever galaxies cluster in their thousands, equally massive concentrations of dark matter occupy the same space, a close alignment that confirms dark matter's gravity has been shepherding regular matter into stars, galaxies, and ultimately the complex planets capable of supporting life.

AI faces strong skepticism due to its potential for misuse, its drain on resources, and even its potential dumbing down of students. But new results illustrate its uses. A team of astronomers have used a new AI-assisted method to search for rare astronomical objects in the Hubble Legacy Archive. The team sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts in just two and a half days, uncovering nearly 1400 anomalous objects, more than 800 of which had never been documented before.

Why are SMBH in the early Universe so massive? According to astrophysical models, these extraordinarily large SMBH haven't had time to become so massive. Super-Eddington accretion might explain it, but can it explain a very unusual early SMBH recently discovered?