A groundbreaking study led by a University of Leeds scientist has unveiled new insights into how the body manages pain, offering a potential path toward treating long-term pain without relying on addictive opioids.

Professor Nikita Gamper, from the School of Biomedical Sciences at Leeds, and his research team discovered that the human body can generate its own form of natural “sleeping pills” that resemble benzodiazepines. These substances can reduce signals from specific nerves, influencing how intensely pain is felt.

The research, which builds upon earlier studies conducted by Professor Gamper and Professor Xiaona Du of Hebei Medical University in Shijiazhuang, China, could mark a turning point in pain management. With new funding secured for the coming year, the team plans to continue exploring how this biological process could lead to safer, more effective treatments for people suffering from chronic pain.

A New Path Beyond Opioids
Professor Gamper said: “We understand quite a bit about how a person ends up feeling pain, but we can’t do much about it. Despite all the amazing discoveries and textbooks written, opioids are still the gold standard.

“Nothing substantially better than opioids has been produced. If you suffer from pain, you will likely end up with either ibuprofen, which is OK for mild pain, but absolutely does nothing for very strong pain or neuropathic pain; or opioids which are very efficacious but dangerous.”

Benzodiazepines (‘benzos’) are a type of depressant medication commonly prescribed to help with sleep problems, anxiety, and seizures. In their research, Professor Nikita Gamper, Professor Xiaona Du, and Dr. Temugin Berta from the University of Cincinnati discovered that certain cells connected to human nerves, located within structures known as spinal ganglia, can release a peptide that operates in a similar way to benzos.

Because this process takes place only within the peripheral nervous system, it does not cause the entire nervous system to “go to sleep.” As a result, these naturally produced peptides could offer pain relief without the dangerous side effects or risk of addiction associated with opioid drugs.

The study’s results show that nerves are capable of “tuning out” pain signals or limiting how much pain the brain perceives, revealing a potential new mechanism for controlling discomfort at its source.

Martian "slope streaks" are dark albedo features that cover the slopes of topographical features across the Red Planet. They were discovered in the 1970s, and scientists initially assumed they were evidence of landslides caused by melting ice. But while scientists still think that the streaks are the result of landslides, a study published in May revealed that these landslides are actually triggered by "dry processes" that do not involve any water. This narrowed down the list of potential causes but did not conclusively settle the debate around the streaks' origins.

One of the most famous examples of these streaks is on Apollinaris Mons — an extinct shield volcano located just south of Mars' equator. Here, hundreds of parallel streaks can be seen on a single side of a large ridge, giving the structure a "barcode-like" appearance (see below). These streaks appeared at some point between 2013 and 2017, and scientists later realized that they were the result of a nearby meteoroid impact, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.

As a result, some researchers assumed that meteoroid impacts and other seismic events, such as marsquakes, are responsible for birthing most slope streaks. But a new study, published Nov. 6 in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that this is not the case.

Instead, an analysis of around 2.1 million slope streaks, photographed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter between 2006 and 2024, revealed that almost all new streaks are the result of seasonal wind and dust erosion. (The study estimates the total number of slope streaks on Mars to be around 1.6 million, but some streaks were included in multiple image sets.)

"Dust, wind and sand dynamics appear to be the main seasonal drivers of slope streak formation," the study's sole author Valentin Bickel, a planetary scientist at the University of Bern in Switzerland who also co-authored the May study, said in a statement. "Meteoroid impacts and quakes seem to be locally distinct, yet globally relatively insignificant drivers [of streak formation]," he added.

Bickel estimates that less than 0.1% of newly formed slope streaks are created by meteoroid impacts or marsquakes.

An analysis of national climate plans released today at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil warns that countries are failing to carry out core work required to reduce emissions by halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation, and are instead pushing unrealistic carbon removal schemes, such as large-scale tree planting.

The Land Gap 2025 report, led by the University of Melbourne alongside a global consortium of experts, explains why countries are relying on impractical levels of land-based efforts to achieve net-zero emissions, rather than pursuing more realistic climate solutions that involve protecting existing forests and phasing out fossil fuels.

While forest advocates often link the lack of action to a lack of finance for forest protection, authors say the real impediment is a global system that pits economic development against preservation.

Lead author, University of Melbourne Dr. Kate Dooley, explained the new report outlines a series of reforms, many of which are already underway, that can resolve this fundamental conflict and align critical climate and biodiversity goals with economic goals.

"Why are so many countries ignoring forest protection as a key pillar of climate targets? The answer is that they live in a world where heavy sovereign debt burdens and industry-friendly tax and trade policies force many of them to exploit forests to keep their economies from crashing," Dr. Dooley said.

"Yet the bitter irony is that over the long term, healthy forests are essential to healthy economies due to the climate benefits, job opportunities and ecosystem services they provide."

The 2025 Land Gap covers climate pledges from all countries, with updates based on new submissions to the United Nations' climate secretariat leading up to COP30 (as of Oct 31, 2025), including climate plans known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and long-term strategies for 2050.

The report identified two essential flaws in national climate plans submitted for COP30.

The animals that call the Arctic home are fighting to survive as the ice disappears.

Scientists are constantly searching for new clues about the hidden forces that may exist beyond the known laws of physics. One promising area of research focuses on exotic boson interactions, hypothetical effects that could reveal previously unknown particles or forces.

These interactions are predicted to take 16 possible forms, most of which depend on the spins of particles, with some also linked to their velocity. When they occur, they may cause extremely small changes in atomic energy levels, producing faint pseudomagnetic fields.

Detecting these subtle signals requires incredibly sensitive instruments. The SQUIRE project aims to take this challenge into space by placing quantum spin sensors aboard the China Space Station. These sensors are designed to detect pseudomagnetic fields that might arise from interactions between their own spins and Earth’s geoelectrons.

By combining the precision of quantum measurement with the unique conditions of space, SQUIRE can overcome a major limitation of ground-based experiments: increasing both relative motion and the number of polarized spins at the same time.

Researchers from Stockholm University have—for the first time ever—managed to successfully isolate and sequence RNA molecules from Ice Age woolly mammoths. These RNA sequences are the oldest ever recovered and come from mammoth tissue preserved in the Siberian permafrost for nearly 40,000 years.

The study, published in the journal Cell, shows that not only DNA and proteins, but also RNA, can be preserved for very long periods of time, and provide new insights into the biology of species that have long since become extinct.

"With RNA, we can obtain direct evidence of which genes are 'turned on," offering a glimpse into the final moments of life of a mammoth that walked the Earth during the last Ice Age. This is information that cannot be obtained from DNA alone," says Emilio Mármol, lead author of the study and formerly a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University.

Most poverty-fighting efforts focus on meeting basic material needs, such as food and shelter. But this overlooks the psychological and cultural factors that shape how people take action in their lives.

University of Michigan researchers found that psychosocial programs designed to support women's agency in Niger, West Africa, were effective in promoting women's economic empowerment when grounded in local values—such as social harmony, respectfulness and collective progress—but not a Western-style program grounded in individual ambition.

The new study highlights how culturally attuned approaches to empowerment can offer a powerful pathway for reducing global poverty. The research, published in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, introduces a "culturally wise" approach: psychosocial programs that honor diverse worldviews and community values.

"Fighting poverty may require cultural wisdom, not just cash," said study lead author Catherine Thomas, U-M assistant professor of psychology and organizational studies.

Nestled on a hillside in Guangdong Province near Zhaoqing City, the Jinlin crater managed to hide in plain sight until researchers identified it as an impact structure. Only about 200 confirmed impact craters exist worldwide, making each discovery scientifically valuable. But this one stands out for its exceptional size and youth.

The crater formed during the Holocene epoch when the last ice age ended roughly 11,700 years ago. Based on measurements of nearby soil erosion, researchers estimate it was carved sometime during the early to mid Holocene. With a diameter between 820 and 900 metres and a depth of 90 metres, it dwarfs Russia's 300 metre Macha crater, previously the largest known Holocene impact structure.

Finding such a massive, well preserved crater is surprising given the region's climate. Guangdong Province experiences regular monsoons, heavy rainfall, and high humidity precisely the conditions that accelerate erosion and should have long ago obliterated any visible crater. Yet the Jinlin crater remains remarkably intact, preserved within thick layers of weathered granite that protected its structure from the elements.

A large new review finds that adults with lower vitamin D levels are more likely to have depression, especially when 25-hydroxy-vitamin D [25(OH)D] falls at or below 30 nmol/L. The work, published in Biomolecules and Biomedicine, also makes clear that this pattern does not yet prove that low vitamin D causes depression.

Depression affects about 5% of adults worldwide and is expected to become the leading cause of disease burden by 2030. Standard antidepressants help many people but, on average, provide only “small to moderate” effects, which has kept interest high in safe, modifiable factors like vitamin D.

From a biological perspective, the connection makes sense. Vitamin D receptors are abundant in mood-relevant brain regions, including the hypothalamus and pons. Its active form, 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D, supports healthy brain signaling, calms neuro-inflammation, limits oxidative stress, and helps keep intracellular calcium in balance, all pathways that have long been tied to depression.

What's so special about comet 3I/ATLAS? It's only the third object we’ve ever found passing through our solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy. NASA's fleet of spacecraft is making coordinated observations of the comet. Some of what they've seen so far: go.nasa.gov/3IATLAS

🌌 All images, old and new, are in the comments

You can track the comet yourself anytime using our "Eyes on the Solar System" online experience, which simulates the current, past, and future positions of planetary objects and spacecraft using real NASA data: eyes.nasa.gov/apps/solar-sys…

The kind of view that makes you stop scrolling for a moment. ✨

Captured in a timelapse from the International Space Station, this sequence follows Earth as auroras ripple beneath the station and sunrise slowly edges over the planet’s curve. What begins as a quiet glow on the horizon becomes a full sweep of daylight in seconds, a transition you can only witness from orbit 250 miles above our world.

For decades, scientists have targeted the sticky protein clumps that amass in Alzheimer's brains as a potential way of treating the disease, but they may have been off the mark.

A new study shows that clearing away the amyloid-beta clumps doesn't appear to repair key brain functions.

In particular, it doesn't restore the brain's mechanisms for clearing out waste, known as the glymphatic system. This system is known to be impaired in people with Alzheimer's, and would usually help with getting rid of excess amyloid-beta plaques, via waves of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

The study comes from researchers at the Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan, who tested the new Alzheimer's drug lecanemab on 13 people with the disease. Magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI) scans were used to look at the effects on the brain.

"Even when amyloid-beta is reduced by lecanemab, impairment of the glymphatic system may not recover within the short-term," says medical researcher Tatsushi Oura, of Osaka Metropolitan University.