A few years ago, one of us (Myles Allen) asked a Chinese delegate at a climate conference why Beijing had gone for "carbon neutrality" for its 2060 target rather than "climate neutrality" "or net zero," both of which were more fashionable terms at the time.

Her response: "Because we know what it means."

It was a revealing answer: China, unlike many other countries, tends not to make climate commitments that it doesn't understand or intend to keep. And that's why its latest pledge—cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 7%–10% by 2035, as part of its commitments under the Paris agreement—matters more than the underwhelmed response might suggest.

To be fair on those other countries, lofty goals have played a role in driving the climate conversation about what is possible: there is always the argument that it is better to aim for the moon and miss than aim for the gutter and hit it.

But the climate crisis needs more than aspirations. It needs concrete, plausible plans.

That's what makes China's pledge so significant: Beijing has form in only promising what it plans to deliver. Having promised to peak emissions this decade, barely 50 years after it began to industrialize in earnest, it looks set to achieve that. And in the process, become a world leader in wind power, solar energy and electric vehicles.

Learn more about the art of processing martian samples on the blog #ToMarsandBack:
blogs.esa.int/to-mars-and-ba…

The first stars in the universe formed out of pristine hydrogen and helium clouds, in the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang. New James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations reveal that some of the first stars in the universe could have been very different from regular (nuclear fusion-powered) stars, which have been observed and cataloged by astronomers for millennia.

A recent study led by Cosmin Ilie, at Colgate University, in collaboration with Shafaat Mahmud, Jillian Paulin at UPenn, and Katherine Freese, at The University of Texas at Austin, identifies four extremely distant objects which are consistent, both from the point of view of their observed spectra and morphology, with being supermassive dark stars. The paper is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Supermassive dark stars are extremely bright, giant, yet puffy clouds made primarily out of hydrogen and helium, which are supported against gravitational collapse by the minute amounts of self-annihilating dark matter inside them," Ilie said.

Supermassive dark stars and their black hole remnants could be key to solving two recent astronomical puzzles: the larger than expected extremely bright, yet compact, very distant galaxies observed with JWST, and the origin of the supermassive black holes powering the most distant quasars observed.

Freese developed the original theory behind dark stars with Doug Spolyar and Paolo Gondolo. They published their first paper on this theory in the journal Physical Review Letters in 2008. In that paper, they envisioned how such dark stars might have led to supermassive black holes in the early universe. In a 2010 Astrophysical Journal publication, Freese, Ilie, Spolyar, and collaborators identified two mechanisms via which dark stars can grow to become supermassive, and predicted that they could seed the supermassive black holes powering many of the most distant quasars in the universe.

Although dark matter makes up about 25% of the universe, its nature has eluded scientists. It is now widely believed that dark matter consists of a new type of elementary particle, yet to be observed or detected. While the hunt to detect such particles has been on for a few decades, no conclusive evidence has been found yet. Among the leading candidates for dark matter are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. When they collide, these particles would theoretically annihilate themselves, depositing heat into collapsing clouds of hydrogen and converting them into brightly shining dark stars.

The conditions for the formation of dark stars were just right a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, and at the center of dark matter halos. This is when and where the first stars in the universe are expected to have formed.

Astronomers have identified an enormous "growth spurt" in a so-called rogue planet. Unlike the planets in our solar system, these objects do not orbit stars, free-floating on their own instead.

The new observations, made with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), reveal that this free-floating planet is eating up gas and dust from its surroundings at a rate of six billion tons a second. This is the strongest growth rate ever recorded for a rogue planet, or a planet of any kind, providing valuable insights into how they form and grow.

"People may think of planets as quiet and stable worlds, but with this discovery we see that planetary-mass objects freely floating in space can be exciting places," says Víctor Almendros-Abad, an astronomer at the Astronomical Observatory of Palermo, National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), Italy and lead author of the new study.

The newly studied object, which has a mass five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, is located about 620 light-years away in the constellation Chamaeleon.

Officially named Cha 1107-7626, this rogue planet is still forming and is fed by a surrounding disk of gas and dust. This material constantly falls onto the free-floating planet, a process known as accretion. However, the team led by Almendros-Abad has now found that the rate at which the young planet is accreting is not steady.

Many governments and tech companies are investing heavily in quantum technologies. In New Zealand, the recently announced Institute for Advanced Technology is also envisioned to focus on this area of research.

As quantum technologies develop, we argue quantum literacy becomes essential for informed discussions and policy on their potentially profound societal implications.

Quantum technologies build on quantum mechanics, a fundamental theory that explains the structure of matter and has enabled the design of many useful devices such as transistors, microchips and lasers.

The term "quantum" comes from German physicist Max Planck, who proposed that energy can only come in discrete packets, or quanta.

When atoms absorb or emit energy quanta, they transition between quantized energy levels. New technologies use the quantum nature of such levels to develop super-fast computers, precision sensors and improved encryption.

One of the key ingredients in almost any kind of quantum tech is the phenomenon known as "quantum entanglement." It has really bizarre implications which Albert Einstein once called "spooky action at a distance." Among non-physicists, it typically raises consternation or fascination.

A recent paper has proposed a new idea for what is causing the observed accelerated expansion of the universe, and dark matter, suggesting both of them may be a "cosmic illusion" caused by the changing constants of the universe. 

By observing the universe from the cosmic microwave background to our nearest galaxies, we know that our universe is expanding. Weirder (and subject to further observations and analysis) the expansion appears to have sped up, beginning around 5-6 billion years ago. We call the mysterious influence driving the accelerated expansion dark energy. 

Dark matter, meanwhile, is invisible matter that doesn't emit its own light and only interacts with normal matter through gravity, which we can see evidence for in galaxies and galaxy clusters. As well as finding evidence for it in the rotation rate of galaxies, and in the bullet cluster, there is evidence for its existence in the gravitational lensing of galaxies.

While there are many dark matter candidates, and plenty of experiments looking into it, detection has not yet happened, and we are no closer to figuring out what dark energy is. There's even evidence to suggest it could be evolving.

There's a lot to explain, and any new big idea would have to explain a vast amount of observations with it. In a new idea from Rajendra Gupta, adjunct professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa, the observations can be explained by changes to the strength of the fundamental forces of the universe over time.

"The universe's forces actually get weaker on the average as it expands," Gupta said in a statement. "This weakening makes it look like there's a mysterious push making the universe expand faster (which is identified as dark energy). However, at galactic and galaxy-cluster scale, the variation of these forces over their gravitationally bound space results in extra gravity (which is considered due to dark matter). But those things might just be illusions, emergent from the evolving constants defining the strength of the forces."

The paper suggests that galaxy rotation curves, gravitational lensing, and dark energy could all be explained with covarying coupling constants (CCC), or the idea that the universe's "constants" like the strength of gravity and electromagnetism change over time, related to each other. In this model, the coupling constants (noted 𝛼) are fixed on cosmological scales, but are allowed to vary locally depending on the distribution of normal baryonic matter.

The US has hit a regrettable new measles milestone, with over 1,500 cases reported in the country so far this year. This is the highest number since the disease was locally eliminated at the turn of the century.

Although weekly cases are well down compared to the peak of the outbreak in March of this year, it’s a concerning record that could have devastating consequences for children, the unvaccinated, or anyone with a weakened immune system.

According to new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, as of September 30, there have been a total of 1,544 confirmed cases of measles in the United States in 2025. This is the highest since 1992, which saw 2,126 cases, and well above 2019’s modern record of 1,274 – the highest since the disease was declared eliminated in the US in 2000.

Almost all (92 percent) of these infections have involved people who are unvaccinated or have an unknown vaccination status. So far, 191 people have been hospitalized and three have died – the first measles deaths in the US in a decade – with the worst-affected states being Texas and New Mexico, the latter of which declared the end of its large-scale outbreak at the end of last week.

For comparison, last year, there were just 285 cases reported, and 59 in 2023.

Measles outbreaks are entirely preventable thanks to vaccines. It is because of a sustained vaccination effort that the US officially eliminated measles 25 years ago. However, this progress is now being undone as vaccination rates are falling amid a wave of anti-vax sentiment at the highest level.

The CDC states: “The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is very safe and effective. When more than 95 percent of people in a community are vaccinated [...], most people are protected through community immunity (herd immunity).”

“It’s worth emphasizing that there really shouldn’t be any cases at this point, because these diseases are preventable. Anything above zero is tragic. When you’re talking about potentially thousands or millions, that’s unfathomable.”

Most of us have likely experienced artificial intelligence (AI) voices through personal assistants like Siri or Alexa, with their flat intonation and mechanical delivery giving us the impression that we could easily distinguish between an AI-generated voice and a real person. But scientists now say the average listener can no longer tell the difference between real people and "deepfake" voices.

In a new study published Sept. 24 in the journal PLoS One, researchers showed that when people listen to human voices — alongside AI-generated versions of the same voices — they cannot accurately identify which are real and which are fake.

"AI-generated voices are all around us now. We’ve all spoken to Alexa or Siri, or had our calls taken by automated customer service systems," said lead author of the study Nadine Lavan, senior lecturer in psychology at Queen Mary University of London, in a statement. "Those things don’t quite sound like real human voices, but it was only a matter of time until AI technology began to produce naturalistic, human-sounding speech."

The study suggested that, while generic voices created from scratch were not deemed to be realistic, voice clones trained on the voices of real people — deepfake audio — were found to be just as believable as their real-life counterparts.

Engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed an artificial neuron that behaves strikingly like its natural counterpart. The breakthrough builds on earlier research in which the team created protein nanowires from electricity-producing bacteria. Their new discovery suggests the possibility of designing computers that are far more energy-efficient and capable of directly interacting with living cells.

“Our brain processes an enormous amount of data,” says Shuai Fu, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering at UMass Amherst and lead author of the study published in Nature Communications. “But its power usage is very, very low, especially compared to the amount of electricity it takes to run a Large Language Model, like ChatGPT.”

In terms of efficiency, the human body leaves current technology far behind. The brain contains billions of neurons, specialized cells responsible for sending and receiving electrical signals throughout the body. Despite this complexity, it requires only about 20 watts of power to perform tasks such as writing a story. By contrast, a large language model may draw well over a megawatt of electricity to accomplish the same activity.

The Efficiency Challenge
While electrical and computer engineers have long been interested in using artificial neurons as the circuitry for more efficient computers, the problem has always been how to keep their voltage low enough. “Previous versions of artificial neurons used 10 times more voltage—and 100 times more power—than the one we have created,” says Jun Yao, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMass Amherst and the paper’s senior author. That means that previous attempts at creating artificial neurons weren’t all that efficient, nor could they plug directly into living neurons, which would be frightened by the increased amplitude.

“Ours register only 0.1 volts, which is about the same as the neurons in our bodies,” says Yao.

There are a wide range of applications for Fu and Yao’s new neuron, from redesigning computers along bio-inspired, and far more efficient principles, to electronic devices that could speak to our bodies directly.

Researchers have discovered a key molecular process that may contribute to chronic inflammation as we age. If this process can be accurately targeted, it could unlock ways to stay healthier in our later years.

The discovery centers on the unique strands of DNA contained within our mitochondria, the power stations of our cells. By banishing their 'mtDNA' into the surrounding cytoplasm, mitochondria can cause inflammation. Yet just how or why this happens has never been well understood.

In this study, researchers led by a team from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany analyzed tissue samples from humans and test animals, using mice genetically engineered to be models of aging and disease.

They found that when mtDNA can't find enough DNA building blocks (deoxyribonucleotides) for replication, it picks up RNA building blocks (ribonucleotides) instead. This mistake in construction causes instability in the mtDNA, which leads to it being ejected from the organelle.

"Our findings explain on a molecular level how metabolic disturbances can lead to inflammation in senescent cells and in aged tissue and open up new strategies for possible interventions," says molecular biologist Thomas Langer, from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for about 70% of head and neck cancers in the United States, making it the most common type of cancer linked to the virus. Rates of these cancers continue to rise each year. Unlike HPV-related cervical cancers, which have established screening options, there is currently no test to detect HPV-associated head and neck cancers.

As a result, most cases are diagnosed only after tumors have already expanded to billions of cells, causing symptoms and often spreading to nearby lymph nodes. Developing screening tools that can identify these cancers much earlier would allow patients to begin treatment sooner and improve outcomes.

Incoming cuteness alert—did you know baby octopuses can change color and texture from the moment they’re born?

Scientists from the University of Bath, working with colleagues at the Universities of Oxford and Bristol, have created a new molecule that stops a key protein from clumping together in the brain. This protein, called alpha-synuclein, is linked to Parkinson’s disease and certain forms of dementia. The research team has already shown that the molecule is effective in an animal model of Parkinson’s, and they believe it could eventually lead to a treatment that slows how the disease progresses.

Alpha-synuclein is a protein found mainly in brain cells (neurons), where it helps control the release of chemical messengers such as dopamine, which allow neurons to communicate with each other.

In people with Parkinson’s disease, alpha-synuclein begins to stick together, forming harmful clusters that damage and kill nerve cells. This process triggers the movement-related symptoms of the disease, including tremors, stiffness, and difficulty controlling motion. Although current medications can ease these symptoms, there is still no cure for Parkinson’s.

Stabilizing the Protein’s Natural State
Normally, alpha-synuclein’s natural or “native state” is like a flexible strand, but when active it shapes itself into a helix, which is critical for its function in binding and transporting parcels of dopamine.

The team engineered a peptide fragment that locks alpha-synuclein into its healthy shape, blocking its conversion into the toxic clumps that cause nerve cell death.

Laboratory tests showed the peptide is stable, penetrates brain-like cells, and restores movement while reducing protein deposits in a worm model of Parkinson’s.

This breakthrough, published in the journal JACS Au, demonstrates the potential of rational peptide design to transform large, unstable proteins into compact drug-like molecules.

The findings mark a significant step towards developing new peptide-based treatments for currently untreatable neurodegenerative conditions.

Professor Jody Mason, from the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Bath, said: “Our work shows that it is possible to rationally design small peptides that not only prevent harmful protein aggregation but also function inside living systems.

“This opens an exciting path towards new therapies for Parkinson’s and related diseases, where treatment options remain extremely limited.”

Researchers at Penn Medicine have uncovered how psilocybin, the main psychoactive ingredient in certain “magic mushrooms,” influences key brain circuits, offering potential new approaches for treating chronic pain and related mental health conditions.

Chronic pain affects more than 1.5 billion people globally and often intertwines with anxiety and depression, creating a feedback loop that worsens both physical and emotional suffering. The new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, published in Nature Neuroscience, sheds light on how this cycle might be broken.

“As an anesthesiologist, I frequently care for people undergoing surgery who suffer from both chronic pain and depression. In many cases, they’re not sure which condition came first, but often, one makes the other worse,” said Joseph Cichon, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn and senior author of the study. “This new study offers hope. These findings open the door to developing new, non-opioid, non-addictive therapies as psilocybin and related psychedelics are not considered addictive.”

Targeting the Brain’s Pain and Mood Hub
In experiments using mice with chronic nerve injury and inflammatory pain, scientists discovered that a single psilocybin dose eased both pain and depression-like behaviors caused by that pain, with the effects lasting for nearly two weeks. Psilocybin achieves this by subtly stimulating serotonin receptors (5-HT2A and 5-HT1A) in the brain. “Unlike other drugs that fully turn these signals on or off, psilocybin acts more like a dimmer

Scientists have released new images showing, in incredible detail, antibiotics defeating disease-causing bacteria by piercing the microbes' membranes and infiltrating their innards.

The antibiotics, called polymyxins, were observed forcing the armored membranes around Escherichia coli bacterial cells to grow bumps and bulges. The bacteria then shed their outer membranes, leaving space for the antibiotic to enter the cells.

"It was incredible seeing the effect of the antibiotic at the bacterial surface in real-time," study co-author Carolina Borrelli, a doctoral student studying biophysics and microbiology at University College London (UCL), said in a statement.

New research has uncovered a species of hook-toothed lizard that lived about 167 million years ago and has a confusing set of features seen in snakes and geckos—two very distant relatives. One of the oldest relatively complete fossil lizards yet discovered, the Jurassic specimen is described in a study, published on October 1 in the journal Nature, from a multinational collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and scientists in the United Kingdom, including University College London and the National Museums Scotland, France, and South Africa.

The species was given the Gaelic name Breugnathair elgolensis meaning “false snake of Elgol,” referencing the area in Scotland’s Isle of Skye where it was discovered. Breugnathair had snake-like jaws and hook-like, curved teeth similar to those of modern-day pythons, paired with the short body and fully-formed limbs of a lizard.

A trio of researchers has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering how the immune system is prevented from attacking our own bodies.

Mary E. Brunkow of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Fred Ramsdell of Sonoma Biotherapeutics in San Francisco, and Shimon Sakaguchi of Osaka University in Japan were awarded the prize "for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance." The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the winners at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday (Oct. 6).

The three scientists' research, honored with the 116th medicine prize, provides insights into keeping the immune system under control to fight microbes and avoid autoimmune diseases.

"Their discoveries have been decisive for our understanding of how the immune system functions and why we do not all develop serious autoimmune diseases," Olle Kämpe, chair of the Nobel Committee, said in a statement.

Fragments of DNA left by viruses that infected our distant ancestors may be 'firestarters' for new human life, new research finds.

"Our results illustrate how recently emerged… genes can confer developmentally essential functions in humans," Stanford University biologist Raquel Fueyo and colleagues write in their paper.

Fueyo and her team used a ball of stem cells induced to mimic a blastocyst, the phase of embryonic development about five days after fertilization. This 3D model, or blastoid, replicates the developmental stage just before the embryo implants into the uterus's lining.

When the researchers disabled a group of remnant virus genes known as LTR5Hs, the embryonic model either turned into a disorganized clump of cells or died. Without the LTR5Hs, the middle layer (epiblast) of the three-tissue-layered blastoid did not form properly.

Up to 9 percent of our DNA is composed of genetic material from ancient viral invaders. These endogenous retrovirus remnants infiltrated the genetic material of our ancestors' reproductive cells millions of years ago and are now permanently integrated into our genetic blueprints.

NASA's spinning spacecraft studying the satellites of the solar system's largest celestial body (aside from the sun), may already be switched off, but the space agency won't say.

The Juno probe launched in 2011 and entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016, beginning what was originally planned as a 20-month mission. Nearly a decade later, the spacecraft has delivered unprecedented research of the Jovian system, observing the gas giant, its many moons and faint ring system long past its intended lifespan.

NASA has extended Juno's mission multiple times, most recently in 2021, guaranteeing operations through Sept. 30, 2025. That date has now passed, and with the U.S. government shut down, there is no word yet on whether Juno will come out alive on the other side.

Japanese researchers have discovered a way to overcome long-standing thermodynamic limits, such as the Carnot efficiency, by using quantum states that do not undergo thermalization. Their innovative method employs a non-thermal Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid to transform waste heat into electrical energy with greater efficiency than conventional systems. This advancement could lead to more energy-efficient electronics and future progress in quantum computing.

Energy harvesters are devices that collect power from surrounding environmental sources, offering a means to improve the efficiency of modern electronics and industrial operations. Waste heat is produced continuously by everyday technologies, including computers, smartphones, and factory machinery, as well as by large-scale systems like power plants. Energy-harvesting techniques make it possible to reclaim this otherwise lost heat and convert it into usable electricity, reducing dependence on traditional energy supplies.

Traditional energy-harvesting technologies, however, remain limited by the fundamental principles of thermodynamics. Systems that operate under thermal equilibrium face strict boundaries on how much heat can be turned into electrical power. The ratio between generated electricity and the heat drawn from a waste source is defined by the Carnot efficiency. Additional constraints, such as the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency (which represents the efficiency achievable at maximum power output), have further restricted how much practical energy can be recovered from waste heat.

Now, a research team led by Professor Toshimasa Fujisawa from the Department of Physics at Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), Japan, in collaboration with Senior Distinguished Researcher Koji Muraki from NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Japan, has found a way to bypass this barrier. In their paper published in Communications Physics on September 30, 2025, the team introduced a novel energy-harvesting technique that uses unique quantum states to achieve efficiencies that go beyond the conventional thermodynamic limits.

An amateur astronomer looking through data from NASA's Perseverance rover may have spotted interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS as it passed overhead.

On October 3, Comet 3I/ATLAS had its closest approach to Mars, passing by it at a distance of around 29 million kilometers (18 million miles). NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) both planned to observe the sky during this timeframe using space robots such as Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, and we'll find out soon enough if they observed it from Mars' orbit. And possibly, as the case may be, by the Perseverance rover on the Red Planet's surface.

Here's where it gets a little murky. As the US space agency explains on its website, "NASA Operating Status: NASA is currently CLOSED due to a lapse in Government funding". While NASA is unable to post information on any data that may have been captured by its robots, Perseverance continues to send its raw images, which are available to the public to view. Looking through those images, some believe they have identified the interstellar object. While one has been picked up by the press and the Internet alike, this one is unlikely to be an image of 3I/ATLAS. However, another that has gone unnoticed by most media may be worthy of some further attention.