What a landmark new study reveals about the origin of bats

Bats are special: they’re the only mammals that can fly, they can tolerate viruses without getting sick and they have exceptional longevity and cancer resistance. So scientists are welcoming a tour de force study of bat genomics: the first phase of the Bat1K Project, which aims to generate chromosome-level genomes for all living bat species. Notably, the study suggests that bats evolved in Europe, challenging previous hypotheses of African, Asian or North American origins.

A new form of boron

A new phase of the element boron can be stretched to more than 20% of its original length and has an electrical conductivity over a million times that of typical boron materials. The structure, called Imma-B₆₀, is the first new unusual form of boron discovered since 2009. Researchers made it by coaxing boron to react with sodium under high pressure, then removing sodium impurities from the mixture. These properties suggest that the material could one day be used in solar panels, or to replace existing boron compounds in body armour.

Lutetium clock is the best timekeeper ever

Physicists have unveiled the world’s most accurate clock — a timepiece so reliable that it would take more than 260 billion years to lose a second. The device is an ‘optical’ atomic clock, which derives time using the visible-range frequency of light at which an element — in this case, the rare-earth metal lutetium — absorbs radiation. The researchers behind the clock say that it is robust enough that they hope to be able to miniaturise it and eventually take it out of the lab.

Gravitational tug-of-war inside Earth is changing the length of our days

Gravitational and other forces generated by the movement of Earth’s metallic core can explain millisecond-length fluctuations in the length of the 24-hour day over decades. Researchers modelled the impact of various possible internal forces arising from interactions among Earth’s inner and outer cores, and its rocky mantle, which can subtly affect the rate of the planet’s rotation. They found that one scenario, in which a gravitational twisting force generated by the inner core was dominant, best matched the historical record of changes in the length of Earth’s days.

Lead detection reveals text in burned scrolls

Researchers have made their own burned, rolled-up papyri and showed that they can decipher the text by detecting the element lead in the ink. Using X-ray computed tomography (CT) and X-ray fluorescence to spot lead, the team was able to virtually unroll the scrolls and clearly read the text within. “The letters lit up like a Christmas tree,” says retired inventor and study co-author Douglas Seiler. This technique could help researchers read thousands of ancient scrolls recovered from the Roman town of Herculaneum, which were charred by the eruption of Vesuvius — if they contain ink.

First radio signals from an exoplanet

Astronomers have detected radio waves emitted directly by Beta Pictoris b — the first time such signals have been observed from a planet outside our Solar System. Researchers managed to separate the planet’s emissions from those of its host star by choosing a candidate that is big, relatively close to Earth and nicely separated from its magnetically quiet star. The signal comes from auroral radio emissions, similar to those from the Northern and Southern Lights on Earth.

Little red whats?

Little red dots (LRDs) sound innocuous, but they present one of the most exciting mysteries in cosmology. Many have been observed, thanks to the unprecedented window into the distant Universe that has been opened by the James Webb Space Telescope. But what are these enigmatic objects from the dawn of time? An initial consensus has coalesced around them involving black holes of some kind — perhaps primitive versions of the active galactic nuclei we see in the more recent Universe. But other, more exotic, theories have also emerged.

How to make a brain: new experiments challenge existing picture

A new study suggests that two types of precursor cells are required to build the brain, challenging a decades-long theory that a single type of starter cell gives rise to the complex organ. The research finds that one type of precursor cell forms the hindbrain, while another generates the forebrain and midbrain. Not all researchers are convinced by this conclusion, but the work has drawn broad praise for one aspect: the authors found an efficient way to coax stem cells to grow into hindbrain motor-neuron cells, which could aid research into conditions that affect these cells, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

NASA spacecraft discovers a huge new crater on the moon

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted a ‘once-in-a-century’ event — a crater bigger than the Roman Colosseum, which formed when a rock, possibly this size of a three- to six‑story building, crashed into the Moon between 11 April and 22 May, 2024. Such a large-scale event is estimated to occur only once every 132 years.

New evidence for hidden chambers beyond Tutankhamun’s tomb

Researchers say they have new found evidence for the tantalizing, but controversial, idea that there are as-yet-unexplored chambers in Tutankhamun’s tomb that might hold the remains of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. The team conducted a range of geophysical surveys, including the first use of gravitational techniques to probe the density of ground around the site, and say they strongly support the existence of a “hidden complex” of corridors and rooms predating the entombment of Tutankhamun.

Asgard archaea are revealing the origins of complex life

Microorganisms from which all complex life might be descended — the Asgard archaea — were discovered in 2015 from DNA in sediments plucked from the bottom of the North Atlantic. Since then, researchers have been painstakingly culturing these exotic organisms and finding lots of surprises along the way.

‘Multifunctional’ brain implant translates speech and gestures in real time

A new brain–computer interface (BCI) is the first of its kind to translate its user’s speech and movement at the same time. The device, tested in two people with forms of paralysis, uses artificial intelligence to convert electrical brain activity into text that appears on screen and to prompt a personalised animated avatar to move — all within seconds of the user’s intent. The work is “a step towards more multifunctional BCIs” that better capture the expressivity of communication than do current technologies, says bioengineer and study co-author Samantha Brosler.

Fossil trove sheds new light on Denisovans

A collection of fossils and artefacts recovered from an abandoned quarry in southwestern China has given researchers an unprecedented glimpse into the lives of ancient humans called Denisovans. The items suggest that Denisovans — who lived at the site for at least 30,000 years — crafted bone tools similar to those of the Neanderthals, and were skilled hunters of animals such as deer. “This site’s the full package,” says archaeologist Ben Marwick. “It’s the first site that we have with a long, rich sequence that’s uniquely associated with Denisovans.”

Moon might have formed in five hours

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the Moon might have taken just five hours to form from the debris of a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized space rock. Simulations have tended to focus on the size of proto-Earth and ‘Theia’, the body that evidence suggests once struck our home planet. If Earth and Theia were both hot and smooshy, the chunks that eventually formed the Moon would have stayed largely intact — making it form more quickly — than if the two smashees were cool.

Is this the first glimpse of dark matter?

A single data point from a dark-matter detector in the United States could be the first discovery of the elusive particle we call dark matter. The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota contains 10 tonnes of liquid xenon. It seeks evidence of a candidate particle called a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle) by looking for flashes created when such a particle collides with the nucleus of just one xenon atom. If the finding can be backed up with more data, it could mean that the material that seems to make up most of the mass of the Universe has finally been discovered.

The leap second is dead. Long live the leap hour?

The leap second — a periodic adjustment that keeps the relentless march of the world’s atomic clocks in sync with the planet’s naturally varying rotation — could be scrapped as soon as October. The world’s timekeeping authorities want to fast-track a change, already planned for 2035, because we’re facing the possibility of the first-ever negative leap second — meaning that clocks must skip, rather than gain, a second. The unprecedented event could cause chaos, say researchers — especially because the leap second is handled slightly differently across crucial infrastructure such as electrical grids and financial systems. Better, say timekeepers, would be a leap hour — which would mean adjustments only once in hundreds, or thousands, of years.