Scientists in Antarctica: why they’re there and what they’ve found

David William Hedding, University of South AfricaA media storm blew up in mid-March 2025 when a researcher at South Africa’s isolated Sanae IV base in Antarctica accused one of its nine team members of becoming violent. The Conversation Africa asked geomorphologist David William Hedding, who has previously carried out research from the frozen continent, about the work researchers do in Antarctica, what conditions are like and why it matters. What do researchers focus on when they’re working in Antarctica? Currently, the main focus of research in the Antarctic revolves around climate change because the White Continent is a good barometer for changes in global cycles. It has a unique and fragile environment. It’s an extreme climate which makes it highly sensitive to any changes in global climate and atmospheric conditions. Importantly, the Antarctic remains relatively untouched by humans, so we are able to study processes and responses of natural systems. Also, the geographic location of Antarctic enables science that is less suitable elsewhere on the planet. An example of this is the work on space weather (primarily disturbances to the Earth’s magnetic field caused by solar activity). Studying space weather is significant because the magnetic field of the Earth can impact communication platforms, technology, infrastructure and...

Read More........→March 26, 2025

Scientists Discover Oldest Bird Fossils, Rewrite History of Avian Evolution

A photograph and interpretive line drawing show the Baminornis zhenghensis fossil – credit: Min WangAccording to a truly field-altering fossilized bird found in China, birds already existed in the Late Jurassic period, approximately 160 million years ago.The new discovery suggests that rather than a linear evolutionary path from dinosaur to bird, these two orders evolved somewhat simultaneously.An artistic representation of the newly discovered species, Baminornis zhenghensis, with the preserved bones highlighted – credit: Zhao Chuang.Baminornis zhenghensis is the world’s oldest species of avid. A holotype fossil was recently found in East China’s Fujian Province and described in the journal Nature. The pelvis, trunk, forelimbs, and part of the hindlimb are all intact.“Baminornis is a landmark discovery and ranks among the most important bird fossils unearthed since the discovery of Archaeopteryx in the early 1860s,” Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist from the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the study but wrote a commentary accompanying it, tells Xinhua.“This is a groundbreaking discovery. It overturns the previous situation that Archaeopteryx was the only bird found in the Jurassic Period,” Zhonghe Zhou, a paleontologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and co-author of the study, tells the Chinese news agency...

Read More........→March 05, 2025

Scientists Drill Ice Core–2 Miles Down–Extracting 1.2 Million Years of Climate Record On Earth

Antarctica ice core – PNRA / IPEV via SWNSAn international team of scientists in the Antarctic has successfully extracted what is believed to be the world’s oldest ice—a historic milestone for climate science.They drilled down almost two miles to extract 2.8-km of ice core, reaching the actual bedrock beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.The air bubbles trapped inside the ice are “like tiny time capsules of Earth’s atmospheric past”. The samples equate to a continuous record of climate history dating back to 1.2 million years ago, which could illuminate the mysteries of glacial climate cycles.This was the fourth Antarctic field mission for the Europeans behind the ‘Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice’ project, funded by the European Commission.They achieved more than 200 days of successful drilling and ice core processing operations across four seasons in the harsh environment of the central Antarctic plateau, working at an altitude of 3,200 meters above sea level with an average summer temperature of -35°C.The ice core from Beyond EPICA will offer unprecedented insights into the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, a remarkable period between 900,000 and 1.2 million years ago when glacial cycles slowed down from 41,000-years to 100,000-year intervals.The reasons behind this shift remain one of climate science’s enduring mysteries, one which this project...

Read More........→February 07, 2025

‘Digital doppelgangers’ are helping scientists tackle everyday problems – and showing what makes us human

cybermagician/Shutterstock Alicia (Lucy) Cameron, CSIRO and Sarah Vivienne Bentley, CSIROAs rising seas lap at its shore, Tuvalu faces an existential threat. In an effort to preserve the tiny island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, its government has been building a “digital twin” of the entire country. Digital twins are exactly what they sound like – a virtual double or replica of a physical, real-world entity. Scientists have been creating digital twins of everything from molecules, to infrastructure, and even entire planets. It’s also now possible to construct a digital twin of an individual person. In other words, a “digital doppelganger”. A doppelganger is someone who looks spookily like you but isn’t. The word originated in German, and literally means a “double walker”. A number of industries are now using digital doppelgangers for a range of reasons. These include enhancing athletic performance, offering more personalised healthcare and improving workplace safety. But although there are benefits to this technology, there are significant risks associated with its development. Having digital doppelgangers also forces us to reflect on which of our human attributes can’t be digitally replicated. Modelling complex systems The development of digital twins has been enabled by advances in environmental sensors,...

Read More........→January 31, 2025

Scientists discover new superconductor material for wider use

Tokyo, (IANS): Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered a new superconducting material which can be more widely deployed in society.They combined iron, nickel, and zirconium, to create a new transition metal zirconide with different ratios of iron to nickel.While both iron zirconide and nickel zirconide are not superconducting, the newly prepared mixtures are, exhibiting a “dome-shaped” phase diagram typical of so-called “unconventional superconductors,” a promising avenue for developing high temperature superconducting materials, according to the study published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds.Superconductors already play an active role in cutting-edge technologies, from superconducting magnets in medical devices and maglev systems to superconducting cables for power transmission.However, they generally rely on cooling to temperatures of around four Kelvin, a key roadblock in wider deployment of the technology.Scientists are on the lookout for materials which can show zero resistivity at higher temperatures, particularly the 77 Kelvin threshold at which liquid nitrogen can be used to cool the materials instead of liquid helium.Now, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yoshikazu Mizuguchi from Tokyo Metropolitan University have conceived a new superconducting material containing a magnetic...

Read More........→January 23, 2025

Scientists Finally Discover Why Some Cats Are Orange–and Why They Tend to Be Males

Photo by Melanie Andersen on UnsplashOrange cats have won a reputation for being energetic rascals. In Italy, it’s said the red cat is always the leader.That’s probably because red/orange cats are almost always males, and now we know why thanks to two teams of scientists probing the genetic lineage of the orange coat in domesticated felines.Working separately,, reports Smithsonian Magazine, the two teams have independently arrived at the same conclusion—a mutation on the X chromosome.Male animals have one copy of the X chromosome, while females have two—explaining yet further why female cats with orange in their coats tend to have it mixed in with other colors such as black in the case of a ‘tortoiseshell cat,’ and white in the case of a calico.Kelly McGowan, a Stanford University geneticist who participated in one of the two studies, said that cats are a “fascinating exception” to the trend of orange coloration in other animals such as dogs, sheep, horses, and rabbits.“Our work provides an explanation for why orange cats are a genetic unicorn of sorts,” she told Newsweek.In most other mammals, mutations in a protein called Mc1r lead to red hair color, but not in cats. Instead, this decades-long mystery has been solved with the identification of the gene Arhgap36 that codes for a protein along the X chromosome.Arhgap36 has never...

Read More........→January 03, 2025

Vaccine that Could Cure and Even Prevent Brain Cancer Developed by Scientists

In Boston, a potentially-revolutionary treatment for deadly brain cancer is showing promising early signs in mice both for the eradication and prevention of tumors and individual cancer cells.A vaccine in the true sense of the word, the method involves repurposing living cancer cells to destroy the tumors which spawned them.Cancer cells have very particular characteristics, one of which potentially makes them even better cancer-killers than immune molecules. That characteristic is their ability to travel long distances through the body returning to the tumor they came from.By using a similar technique to CRISPR called CRISP-CAS9, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston were able to change proteins within the living cancer cells to prime tumors and other cells for destruction. The priming got the immune system involved, which then resulted in the mice in immunological memory just like vaccines for viruses.In experiments, it worked on mice carrying cells derived from humans, mimicking what will happen in patients, which had the deadliest form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.“Our team has pursued a simple idea: to take cancer cells and transform them into cancer killers and vaccines,” said corresponding author Dr Khalid Shah.“Using gene engineering, we are repurposing cancer cells to develop a therapeutic that kills...

Read More........→December 19, 2024

New Zealand scientists dissect world's rarest whale

WELLINGTON - New Zealand scientists on Monday began dissecting a whale considered the rarest in the world, a species so elusive that only seven specimens have ever been documented.The dead spade-toothed whale washed ashore on New Zealand's South Island earlier this year, offering a chance to study a deep-sea mammal that has never been seen alive.Measuring five metres long, the whale was winched off the beach in July and has sat in a special freezer since.Whale expert Anton van Helden said it was the first time scientists had been able to dissect a complete spade-toothed specimen, which belongs to the family of beaked whales."This is a remarkable and globally significant opportunity," he said.The week-long dissection will help to fill in gaps about the whale's behaviour, its diet, and even its basic anatomy."Beaked whales are the most enigmatic group of large mammals on the planet," said Van Helden."They are deep divers that are rarely seen at sea, which presents real challenges for researching these marine animals."This one is the rarest of the rare - only the seventh specimen known from anywhere in the world, and the first opportunity we have had to undertake a dissection like this."New Zealand's conservation department said the spade-toothed whale was the "rarest whale in the world".The species was first described in 1874 from...

Read More........→December 11, 2024

Scientists Discover ‘World’s Largest’ Coral –the Size of 5 Tennis Courts

Courtesy of Manu San Félix / National Geographic Pristine Seas (cropped)On an expedition to the Solomon Islands, divers affiliated with National Geographic have found the world’s largest single coral colony ever recorded.It’s longer than the largest blue whale. At 34 meters (111 feet) in length, and with a width of 32 (105) meters, it could sit corner to corner across 5 tennis courts.Experts believe it has been growing for between 300 and 500 years.The mammoth coral was discovered by scientists from National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Initiative, which aims to gather scientific data to inform conservation measures in places where marine life is bountiful. During an expedition to the Three Sisters island group in the Makira-Ulawa Province of Solomon Islands, they thought at first its massive shadow under the water was a shipwreck.“At a time where we can observe every square inch of the land with satellites and drones, the ocean below the surface continues to hold mysteries like this one,” said National Geographic explorer in residence Enric Sala. “It was like finding the world’s tallest tree.”Sala hopes the coral and its presentation—agonizingly short of being able to feature at the sixteenth annual conference of the parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, (COP16)—will nevertheless help spur future marine protection by demonstrating...

Read More........→November 28, 2024

First Antarctic amber discovery sheds light on ancient forests

Berlin, (IANS): Scientists in Germany have discovered amber in Antarctica for the first time, revealing that around 90 million years ago, the continent's climate conditions supported resin-producing forests, Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) reported.This southernmost discovery of amber offers new insights into Cretaceous forests near the South Pole, AWI said in a press release.The amber was discovered in a sediment core retrieved from the Amundsen Sea at a depth of 946 meters, using a seabed drilling device during a 2017 expedition aboard the icebreaker Polarstern. For analysis, the source material was carefully air-dried and sliced into pieces about 1 mm in diameter to extract the amber. Potential remnants of tree bark were also identified, offering further clues about the ancient forests near the South Pole."The analyzed amber fragments provide direct insights into the environmental conditions that prevailed in West Antarctica 90 million years ago," AWI marine geologist Johann P. Klages said. "It was very exciting to realize that, at some point in their history, all seven continents had climates that allowed resin-producing trees to survive."The research team, led by scientists from AWI and the TU Bergakademie Freiberg, has published their findings in the journal Antarctic Science, Xinhua news agency reported. First Antarctic...

Read More........→November 14, 2024

Scientists find potential treatment target for leading cause of blindness

New Delhi, (IANS) US scientists have found answers to why treatment for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) -- a leading cause of blindness -- does not benefit all; and also developed a potential antibody treatment.AMD is a condition characterised by abnormal blood vessel growth in the back of the eye.Older age, diabetes, obesity, and many other chronic metabolic diseases lead to excessive vascular growth and damage to the macula -- the part of the eye that translates light into image signals.The first line of defence is usually the Anti-VEGF therapy, which blocks vascular endothelial growth factor and keeps excessive blood vessel growth at bay. However, it only works well for around a third of patients, said the team from the Medical College of Georgia (MCG)."Fibroblast cells" are the reason, they found."Collagen and many other proteins produced by these fibroblast cells accumulate outside of the vascular cells and eventually lead to fibrosis or scarring in the eye. This keeps the excess vasculature from being suppressed by anti-VEGF treatments," revealed the study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine."We show, for the first time in this study, that many fibroblast cells are actually produced by these excessive endothelial cells," said Yuqing Huo, the Director of the Vascular Inflammation Programme...

Read More........→October 02, 2024

Indian scientists use machine learning to predict crustal movements in Tibetan Plateau

New Delhi, (IANS): A team of scientists at Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, an autonomous Institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), on Tuesday revealed machine learning (ML) techniques for modelling crustal deformations over the Tibetan Plateau.The team noted that the techniques helped them forecast the velocity vectors of such movements and enhanced the characterisation of plate movements.Typically, a dense network of Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) is employed to continuously monitor crustal deformation. Campaign-mode GPS surveys are often used to densify the existing CORS network. However, these are not only expensive but also challenging due to logistical problems and regional geographical considerations.The Wadia Institute scientists instead implemented ML techniques such as support vector machines, decision trees, and Gaussian process regression to accurately model crustal movement. In the study, the team analysed data from 1,271 permanent continuous and campaign-mode GPS stations located on the Tibetan plateau and its surrounding areas. They used data from 892 stations for model training and data from 379 stations for testing.The results, published in the Journal of Asian Earth Sciences, demonstrate the "effectiveness of these ML techniques in forecasting velocity vectors -- easting...

Read More........→September 18, 2024

DRDO’s young scientists complete testing of 6-qubit quantum processor

New Delhi, (IANS): Scientists from DRDO's Young Scientists Laboratory for Quantum Technologies (DYSL-QT) have completed end-to-end testing of a 6-qubit quantum processor, the Ministry of Defence said.“The project executed at TIFR Mumbai’s Colaba campus is a three-way collaboration between DYSL-QT, TIFR and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The DYSL-QT scientists put together the control and measurement apparatus using a combination of commercial off-the-shelf electronics and custom-programmed development boards,” the ministry said.It added that these qubits were designed and fabricated at TIFR and the quantum processor architecture is based on a novel ring-resonator design invented at TIFR. The cloud-based interface to the quantum hardware is developed by TCS.“The scientists are now working on optimising various aspects of the system performance before it becomes ready for operation,” the ministry said.The ministry added that plans are underway to provide wider access to this system for education, and research and eventually as a test bed for testing superconducting quantum devices for analysis.“The next development target is to scale up the number of qubits and assess the scaling trends to technology challenges, development effort/time and monetary resources required for development, operations and commercialisation of various sizes...

Read More........→September 16, 2024

Five scientists honoured for advancing mental health disorder prevention, diagnosis and treatment

New Delhi, (IANS) The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) has announced the recipients of the 2024 Klerman and Freedman Prizes, recognising outstanding clinical and basic research in mental illness. These prestigious awards honour the work of scientists supported by the Foundation's Young Investigator Grants Program.The 2024 Klerman and Freedman prize winners are being recognised for their significant findings related to suicide prevention, PTSD, substance-use disorders, autism, brain biology, and therapeutic drug development,” said Dr Jeffrey Borenstein, President and CEO of the BBRF. He highlighted that their work advances diagnostic tools, identifies effective treatments, and aids in the prevention of mental illness.The prize winners were selected by the BBRF Scientific Council, comprising 192 leading mental health researchers. Since 1987, the Foundation has awarded over $450 million to more than 5,400 scientists globally. The awards are named after Gerald Klerman, MD, and Daniel Freedman, MD -- legendary figures in neuropsychiatry.Juliet Beni Edgcomb, MD, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles, has been selected for the 2024 Klerman Prize for Exceptional Clinical Research.Dr Edgcomb is developing methodologies to identify children and adolescents with suicide-related symptoms from electronic health record (EHR)...

Read More........→August 22, 2024

Scientists discover gut protein that helps protect brain cells from Parkinson’s

New Delhi, (IANS) Scientists have identified a gut protein that can prevent the development of Parkinson's disease (PD) by protecting against brain damage. This disease affects nearly 10 million people globally.Parkinson's is characterised by rigidity of muscle and tremors due to loss of dopamine in the brain, and one of the reasons for that is toxin exposure.In the study published in the journal npj Parkinson's Disease, the team found that gut receptor protein GUCY2C could prevent PD by protecting the brain from damage.Dr Scott A. Waldman and his team at Thomas Jefferson University have been studying GUCY2C, known for its role in gut water and salt secretion, and found that it also present in the brain.They observed that removing GUCY2C from gut cells in mice increased the expression of PD-related genes, prompting them to investigate its role in the brain.Collaborating with Dr. Richard Smeyne, they discovered that mice without GUCY2C had more brain-cell damage and were more toxin-susceptible than normal mice. When normal mice were exposed to toxins, GUCY2C levels naturally increased, indicating a protective role in neurons.In human samples, PD patients showed elevated GUCY2C levels compared to non-PD patients, puzzling researchers. Current PD therapies manage symptoms by mimicking dopamine.However, targeting GUCY2C could potentially...

Read More........→August 13, 2024

Indian scientists develop tool to generate infrared star catalogue for Thirty Meter Telescope

New Delhi, July 9 (IANS) A team of Indian scientists has developed an open-source tool to generate an infrared star catalogue for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which is a planned telescope proposed to be built on Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on Tuesday.The online tool to create a comprehensive star catalogue for the Adaptive Optics (AO) system of the upcoming TMT can enable this ground-based telescope -- one of the largest to be operational in the next decade -- to generate sharper astronomical images.India is a key partner in the TMT project, with the India TMT Center at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru leading the national collaboration."The AOS system on TMT, known as the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS), will be enhanced by a Laser Guide Star (LGS) facility," said Dr Sarang Shah from IIA.This facility will project up to nine lasers into the sky to create artificial guide stars."However, atmospheric turbulence affects these laser beams, so measuring atmospheric tip-tilt is uncertain. To correct these effects, the AO system requires feedback from three real stars, known as Natural Guide Stars (NGS)," Shah said in the research published in the Astronomical Journal.Telescopes on the surface of the Earth face the challenge of atmospheric...

Read More........→July 12, 2024

Gene-edited cells move science closer to repairing damaged hearts

Heart_dreamstime_m_34545146Scientists seeking to combat the nation’s No. 1 killer have discovered why experiments using cell transplants to repair damage from a heart attack wind up backfiring and causing life-threatening arrhythmias.A new study in the journal Cell Stem Cell points the way toward a possible solution, advancing medicine a step further toward the goal of regenerating the human heart.“I don’t think this is science fiction that’s decades or centuries away,” said Michael Laflamme, a professor at the University of Toronto and senior scientist at the University Health Network. “It’s happening already.” Laflamme, who was not an author on the paper, praised the researchers for finding “a viable path” toward overcoming the dangerous irregular heartbeats. That path uses cutting-edge gene editing to replace dead heart cells with new ones engineered to reduce arrhythmias.In a typical heart attack, the organ loses about one quarter of its 4 billion cells, said Charles Murry, who led the study and directs the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington.Even when we are fortunate enough to survive a heart attack, we’re thwarted by our own biology. The human heart is able to regenerate at birth, but loses the capacity soon after for reasons that aren’t fully understood.Lacking the power to regenerate,...

Read More........→June 02, 2024

Scientists develop blood-based marker to spot acute sleep deprivation

New Delhi, March 10 (IANS) A team of scientists has developed a blood test that can detect when someone has not slept for 24 hours, also called sleep deprivation.This level of sleep deprivation increases the risk of serious injury or fatality in safety critical situations, according to experts at Monash University in Australia, and the University of Birmingham in the UK.The biomarker detected whether individuals had been awake for 24 hours with a 99.2 per cent probability of being correct, according to the study published in the journal Science Advances.“This is a really exciting discovery for sleep scientists, and could be transformative to the future management of health and safety relating to insufficient sleep,” said Clare Anderson, a professor of Sleep and Circadian Science at the University of Birmingham in the UK.With about 20 per cent of road accidents worldwide caused by sleep deprivation, researchers hope the discovery may inform future tests to quickly and simply identify sleep deprived drivers.“There is strong evidence that less than five hours’ sleep is associated with unsafe driving, but driving after being awake for 24 hours, which is what we detected here, would be at least comparable to more than double the Australian legal limit of alcohol performance wise,” Anderson added.The test may be also ideal for future...

Read More........→May 03, 2024

Scientists Studying Crows Get Big Surprise –They’re So Smart They Understand the Concept of Zero

Chuck Homler, DBA Focus on Wildlife/CC license 4.0Building on substantial evidence of crow consciousness, a German university has proven some crows can learn to recognize ‘zero’ as a counting unit. While that sounds ridiculous, zero is not nothing, rather it’s one of the most complex mathematical concepts devised—that something can and should represent nothing, not only as the base value, but as a placeholder. The work comes from the University of Tübingen in Germany, where professor Andreas Nieder works with carrion crows to perform intelligence tests. “The conception of “nothing” as number “zero” is celebrated as one of the greatest achievements in mathematics,” wrote Nieder in his paper. “We show that crows can grasp the empty set as a null numerical quantity that is mentally represented next to number one.” Exactly how this breakthrough was made is straightforward and did not involve birds watching Sesame Street. The crows were shown two sets of dots on a screen and were taught to indicate if the two screens had the same values. There could be between zero and four dots. Exactly as with 1, 2, 3, and 4—when the screens showed no dots, neurons in the crow’s brain demonstrated it was understanding this was a numeric value, but that it was a numeric value that contained nothing. Sometimes the crows made mistakes, often by thinking...

Read More........→May 01, 2024

University of Delaware professor wins top bio-innovation prize

Aditja Kunjapur PHOTO: AAAS.orgBiomolecular engineer Aditya Kunjapur, assistant professor at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, recently won the 2024 BioInnovation Institute & Science Prize for Innovation,Kunjapur and his colleagues have found a way to create bacteria that build and incorporate a key amino acid into their own proteins, making it easier to fight infections.For this work toward building a better platform for possible ifuture bacterial vaccines, Kunjapur is the winner of the 2024 BioInnovation Institute & SciencePrize for Innovation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced April 5, in a news item on aaas.org.“The prize seeks to reward scientists who deliver research at the intersection of the life sciences and entrepreneurship,” it noted.“Dr. Kunjapur’s outstanding research demonstrates the potential to engineer live bacterial cells to produce and incorporate nitrated amino acids into antigenic proteins, thus shining a spotlight on these proteins for the human immune system,” Michael Funk, senior editor at Science is quoted saying in the new release. “This work provides a platform for antigen engineering that is adaptable, specific, and amenable to safety controls.”Vaccines against bacterial infections would likely decrease the need for antibiotic medicines, which in turn...

Read More........→April 23, 2024