Gene transfer from plant to insect

A pernicious agricultural pest owes some of its success to a gene pilfered from its plant host millions of years ago. The finding is the first known example of a natural gene transfer from a plant to an insect. It also explains one reason why the whitefly Bemisia tabaci is so adept at munching on crops: the gene that it swiped from plants enables it to neutralise a toxin that some plants produce to defend against insects. Early work suggests that inhibiting this gene can render the whiteflies vulnerable to the toxin, providing a potential route to combating the pest.

New picture of famous black hole reveals its swirling magnetic field

This swirling version of the now-iconic black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy reveals the nature of the region’s magnetic field. The image was produced by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — which in 2019 produced the first-ever image of a black hole. It shows polarised light emitted by jets hurled by the black hole, accelerating along magnetic fields as they go.

3,000-year-old treasures of Sanxingdui

Archæologists in China have unveiled more than 500 artefacts from six ‘sacrificial pits’ in Sanxingdui dating back more than 3,000 years. The site in southwestern Sichuan province provides a glimpse into an ancient civilisation at the heart of what is thought to be the Shu kingdom. The findings include artistic carvings on a bean-sized piece of ivory, and fragments of a golden mask.

Scientists discover why the human brain is the largest ape brain

Scientists have identified a molecular switch that controls brain growth, making human brains three times larger than those of the other great apes. In studies on mini-brains grown in a dish, they were able to tinker with the mechanism to make gorilla brain tissue larger and human brain tissue smaller.

LHC finds tantalising hints of new physics

Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have seen early hints of an undiscovered particle or interaction. More research is needed, but the results suggest an imbalance in how subatomic beauty quarks decay into two flavours of leptons: electrons and muons. If confirmed, that’s a violation of lepton flavour universality as described by the standard model of particle physics.

How the World’s Oldest Wooden Sculpture Is Reshaping Prehistory

The world’s oldest wooden sculpture is even older than previously thought. A new study suggests that the 2.7-metre-tall Shigir Idol was carved more than 12,000 years ago from a tree that was already more than 150 years old. The relic was preserved in a peat bog in the Ural Mountains and is the world’s only surviving Stone Age wood carving. Its complex iconography of geometric patterns and human faces suggests that the region’s ancient societies were more sophisticated than previously thought.

Mars becomes the first inner planet after Earth to have its core measured

NASA’s InSight spacecraft has revealed the size of Mars’s core by listening to seismic energy ringing through the planet’s interior. InSight’s measurement, taken from the Martian surface, suggests that the radius of the Martian core is 1,810–1,860 kilometres — roughly half of Earth’s. That’s larger than some previous estimates, meaning the core is less dense than had been predicted. The only other rocky planetary bodies for which scientists have measured the core are Earth and the Moon. Adding Mars will allow researchers to compare and contrast how the Solar System’s planets evolved.

Archaea fold, twist and contort their DNA in extreme ways

Single-celled archaea wrap their DNA into flexible, Slinky-like coils that open and close like a clamshell does, possibly providing easy access to their genes. Researchers used computer simulations and electron microscopy to observe this genetic contortion in Methanothermus fervidus for the first time.

Evidence of elusive Majorana particle dies

A study that was once trumpeted as evidence for the existence of an exotic quantum state that could revolutionise computing has turned out to be anything but. A 2018 Nature paper, based on work led by researchers at a Microsoft laboratory in the Netherlands, has now been officially retracted owing to what the authors call “insufficient scientific rigour” in the original data analysis. The retraction is a setback for this approach to quantum computing, but some scientists say it should still be possible to create and study the exotic states, known as Majorana fermions, that were the subject of the research.

Giant ice cube hints at the existence of cosmic antineutrinos

A huge neutrino detector in the Antarctic ice sheet might have seen the first evidence of a rare neutrino-interaction process called the Glashow resonance. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, buried in the deep ice near the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, observes eye-wateringly powerful neutrinos produced by sources such as active galactic nuclei and supernovae. The observatory detected a shower of secondary particles that look likely to have been caused by a collision between an electron antineutrino travelling close to the speed of light and an electron in the ice. If confirmed by more observations, the finding provides further confirmation of the standard model of particle physics, proves the existence of cosmic antineutrinos and opens the door to a better understanding of the wild stuff going on in the cosmos.

Gravity measured on the smallest scale ever

Physicists have measured the infinitesimal gravitational force between two tiny gold spheres, each about the size of a sesame seed, separated by a few millimetres. Researchers reduced interference by using a Faraday shield between the masses, and the experiment was performed in a vacuum during the least seismically active time of year. The work could pave the way to a better understanding of fundamental interactions and the quantum nature of gravity.

Bioluminescence found in deep-sea sharks

Scientists have found three species of sharks living in the deep waters off the east coast of New Zealand that glow in the dark. Many marine animals can produce light through a process known as bioluminescence, but this is the first time that the phenomenon has been observed in the kitefin shark (Dalatias licha), the blackbelly lanternshark (Etmopterus lucifer) and the southern lanternshark (Etmopterus granulosus). At a length of up to 180 centimetres, the kitefin the biggest luminous vertebrate known. The glowing underbellies could camouflage the sharks from predators from below, disguise them when approaching prey or help to illuminate the dark ocean floor.