Violence against women remains one of the world's most persistent and under-addressed human rights crises, with very little progress in two decades, according to a landmark report released today by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN partners.

Nearly 1 in 3 women—estimated 840 million globally—have experienced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime, a figure that has barely changed since 2000. In the last 12 months alone, 316 million women—11% of those aged 15 or older—were subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. Progress on reducing intimate partner violence has been painfully slow with only 0.2% annual decline over the past two decades.

For the first time, the report includes national and regional estimates of sexual violence by someone other than a partner. It finds 263 million women have experienced non-partner sexual violence since age 15, a figure experts caution is significantly under-reported due to stigma and fear.

"Violence against women is one of humanity's oldest and most pervasive injustices, yet still one of the least acted upon," said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "No society can call itself fair, safe or healthy while half its population lives in fear.

"Ending this violence is not only a matter of policy; it is a matter of dignity, equality and human rights. Behind every statistic is a woman or girl whose life has been forever altered. Empowering women and girls is not optional, it's a prerequisite for peace, development and health. A safer world for women is a better world for everyone."

Efforts face funding cuts amidst mounting needs
The new report, released ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls observed on 25 November, represents the most comprehensive study on the prevalence of these two forms of violence against women. It updates 2018 estimates released in 2021. It analyzes data between 2000 and 2023 from 168 countries, revealing a stark picture of a deeply neglected crisis and critically underfunded response.

Despite mounting evidence on effective strategies to prevent violence against women, the report warns that funding for such initiatives is collapsing—just as when humanitarian emergencies, technological shifts, and rising socio-economic inequality are further increasing risks for millions of women and girls. For instance, in 2022, only 0.2% of the global development aid was allocated to programs focused on prevention of violence against women, and funding has further fallen in 2025.

Widespread and lifelong risks
Women subjected to violence face unintended pregnancies, a higher risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections and experiencing depression. Sexual and reproductive health services are an important entry point for survivors to receive the high-quality care they need.

The report underscores the reality that violence against women begins early and risks persist throughout life. For example, in the past 12 months alone, 12.5 million adolescent girls 15–19 years of age or 16% have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner.

While violence occurs in every country, women in least-developed, conflict-affected, and climate-vulnerable settings are disproportionately affected. For example, Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand) reports a 38% prevalence of intimate partner violence in the past year—more than three times the global average of 11%.

A call for action—and accountability
More countries than ever are now collecting data to inform policies, yet significant gaps remain—particularly on non-partner sexual violence, marginalized groups such as indigenous women, migrants, and women with disabilities, as well as data from fragile and humanitarian settings.

New Webb data suggests that black holes in the early Universe are growing faster than we expected in early galaxies - and also growing faster than the galaxies that host them.

esawebb.org/news/weic2522/

New research suggests future images of black holes could be precise enough to allow scientists to determine if these objects are accurately described by Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, general relativity — or if they are best modeled by alternative theories.

Such black hole research is possible due to breakthroughs in black hole imaging pioneered by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which revealed the first image of a black hole in 2019. This image focused on the supermassive black hole at the heart of the distant galaxy M87. In fact, our galaxy has its own central supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) — and the EHT collaboration revealed an image of that one too, in 2022.

However, it's important to recognize that black holes are, by definition, regions of space at which the influence of gravity becomes so great that not even light has the necessary velocity to escape. Thus, the images captured by the EHT don't actually show the black holes themselves. Rather, they trace blisteringly hot matter that whirls around these voids. What we are effectively seeing in the images of M87* and Sgr A* are the shadows of these black holes.

The latest study's team proposes that images of these shadows could be so detailed one day that they could potentially show tiny deviations from general relativity. These will allow scientists to investigate what the "recipe" is to actually describe black holes.

"We developed a practical, simulation-backed way to compare images of the hot gas around black holes predicted by Einstein's general relativity with images predicted by deviation from general relativity," research lead author Akhil Uniyal of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China told Space.com. "Running realistic three-dimensional simulations of gas and magnetic fields for many hypothetical black-hole spacetimes produced synthetic images and defined image-comparison metrics that quantify how different two images are.

"The key result is that while many alternatives look very similar to the 'standard' black hole at today's image quality, the differences grow predictably as imaging resolution and fidelity improve, establishing that next-generation horizon-scale imaging could tell Einstein's black holes apart from non-Einstein black holes."

An illustration of future black hole images showing a subtle variation between those described by general relativity and those not. (Image credit: Luciano Rezzolla/Goethe University)

Something’s up with raccoons. Scientists have recently reported that those living in US cities have evolved much shorter snouts than their rural counterparts, a sure sign that urban “trash pandas” have self-domesticated in response to human presence.

Biologists from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock studied thousands of images of North American raccoons (Procyon lotor) captured in the US between 2000 and 2024. Using computer software, they analyzed the skull and snout size of the animals, comparing those living in cities to those in rural settings. 

“I wanted to know if living in a city environment would kickstart domestication processes in animals that are currently not domesticated,” Dr Raffaela Lesch, lead study author and an assistant professor of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, said in a statement. “Would raccoons be on the pathway to domestication just by hanging out in close proximity to humans?”

Their work revealed that the urban-dwelling raccoons had a 3.56 percent reduction in snout length, suggesting they were experiencing a phenomenon known as domestication syndrome.

Domestication syndrome is a collection of traits that emerge when animals adapt to living closely with humans. Decreased aggression is a prime feature, but it also includes attributes like floppier ears, more varied fur patterns, smaller teeth, smaller brains, and shorter muzzles.

The most obvious example can be seen in the differences between domestic dogs and their wild canine cousins, like wolves and foxes, but domestication syndrome is also evident in cats, horses, cattle, pigs, and other animals that have a tight relationship with humans.

#PPOD: The Eye of the Crater 👁️

A vast cavity on the Red Planet looks back at ESA TGO with an icy stare. The crater is located in Utopia Planitia, the largest known impact basin in the Solar System, with a diameter of roughly 3,300 km, or twice the size of Earth’s Sahara Desert from north to south.

This remnant of an ancient impact is just one of the many scars asteroids have inflicted upon the Red Planet. Water, volcanoes, and impacts from asteroids shaped the Martian surface in the ancient past. Mars is currently a cold, dry desert.

This view from CaSSIS shows a crater approximately eight kilometres in diameter with material ejected in a manner that scientists believe suggests the presence of water ice. When the asteroid hit this region of Mars, the water ice melted, and a mix of liquid water and dust rock was propelled from the top layers.

The smooth appearance of the crater is consistent with other features in the region, which have evidence of a water-ice history. Zooming into the crater, it is possible to see streaks on the walls of the crater, showing evidence of landslides, and ripples sculpted by the wind.

Credit: ESA/ TGO/CaSSIS

Protecting astronauts and their equipment once they leave Earth’s magnetic cocoon is one of the central challenges of sustained lunar and Martian exploration.

The lunar surface in particular is an unforgiving place: without an atmosphere or magnetosphere, it is continuously bombarded by powerful solar and cosmic radiation, and endures some of the most intense temperature swings in the Solar System—from blistering highs of about 121 °C in sunlight to frigid lows near –146 °C in darkness.

In permanently shadowed polar regions, temperatures can plummet to around –240 °C. On top of that, a steady rain of micrometeorites erodes and sandblasts the surface. Any long-term human presence must therefore find shelter from radiation, thermal stress, and hypervelocity dust impacts rather than try to withstand them directly on the surface.

Ancient volcanic activity on the Moon and Mars has left behind lava tubes that are now seen as promising locations for future base camps, offering natural protection beneath the surface. Skylights, collapsed sections of tube ceilings, and long sinuous rilles identified in orbital imagery hint at extensive subsurface voids, but images alone cannot reveal which tubes are intact or suitable for habitats, making direct robotic exploration essential despite the harsh conditions and restricted access.

For many years, scientists studying evolution have believed that most genetic changes influencing how genes and proteins evolve are essentially neutral. These mutations were thought to be neither harmful nor helpful, allowing them to pass through natural selection without much notice.

A new study from the University of Michigan challenges this long-held view.

As species evolve, mutations arise and sometimes become fixed, meaning every member of a population eventually carries the same change. The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution argues that most fixed mutations fall into this neutral category. Harmful mutations are expected to be removed by natural selection, and beneficial ones are considered so uncommon that neutral changes should dominate, explains evolutionary biologist Jianzhi Zhang.

Zhang and his team set out to test this assumption. Their analysis revealed that beneficial mutations appear far more often than the Neutral Theory allows. At the same time, the actual rate at which mutations become fixed is much too low to match the high number of advantageous changes the researchers documented.

Environmental Shifts and the Fate of Mutations
To explain the mismatch in their results, the researchers propose that a mutation that helps an organism in one setting can become harmful when conditions shift. Because environments often change, these useful mutations may disappear before they have time to become fixed in a population. The work, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, appears in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

“We’re saying that the outcome was neutral, but the process was not neutral,” said Zhang, U-M professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “Our model suggests that natural populations are not truly adapted to their environments because environments change very quickly, and populations are always chasing the environment.”

Zhang says their new theory, called Adaptive Tracking with Antagonistic Pleiotropy, tells us something about how well all living things are adapted to their environments.

“I think this has broad implications. For example, humans. Our environment has changed so much, and our genes may not be the best for today’s environment because we went through a lot of other different environments. Some mutations may be beneficial in our old environments, but are mismatched to today,” Zhang said. 

“At any time when you observe a natural population, depending on when the last time the environment had a big change, the population may be very poorly adapted or it may be relatively well adapted. But we’re probably never going to see any population that is fully adapted to its environment, because a full adaptation would take longer than almost any natural environment can remain constant.”

The benefits of quitting are significant, especially in the first decade, but some excess risk remains for decades. Cutting back helps far less than quitting fully.

Low-Intensity Smoking Still Raises Major Cardiovascular Risks
An extensive review of nearly two dozen long-term studies shows that people who smoke only a small number of cigarettes still face a much higher likelihood of heart disease and early death compared to those who have never smoked. This elevated risk persists long after quitting. Michael Blaha of the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, USA, and his colleagues published these results today (November 18th) in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine.

Scientists have long known that smoking contributes to cardiovascular disease, but the connection between the number of cigarettes someone smokes and their specific level of risk has been less clear, particularly for people who smoke lightly. As smoking habits shift and more individuals consume fewer cigarettes than in the past, gaining a clearer understanding of their long-term heart risks and the benefits of quitting remains essential, even for those who do not come close to a pack a day.

Large Multi-Study Analysis Tracks Smoking’s Long-Term Impact
Blaha’s research team examined health data from more than 300,000 participants across 22 longitudinal studies (which follow people over extended periods) for as long as 19.9 years. During that time, the studies recorded over 125,000 deaths and 54,000 cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure.

Their analysis found that smoking as few as two to five cigarettes per day was linked to a 50 percent higher risk of heart failure and a 60 percent higher risk of death from any cause compared with never smoking. The chance of experiencing a cardiovascular event decreased most noticeably in the first 10 years after quitting and continued to decline the longer someone remained smoke-free. Even so, former smokers still showed higher risks than people who never smoked, sometimes lasting up to 30 years after quitting.

Ready to shift your world view? 🌎🌍🌏

👉🏽Explore our planet as you never have before: hubs.li/Q03TS82l0

• A major new three-paper Series in The Lancet shows that ultra-processed foods are pushing aside fresh, minimally processed meals worldwide. The evidence links rising UPF consumption to poorer diet quality and higher risks of chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other long-term illnesses.

• The authors stress that while more research will deepen our understanding, the science already shows enough harm to justify immediate public health action. They argue that waiting for perfect evidence would only allow UPFs to become even more entrenched in global diets.

• The Series emphasizes that improving diets cannot depend on individual willpower alone. Meaningful change requires coordinated policies that limit UPF production, marketing, and availability, while also reducing excess fat, sugar, and salt in the food supply and expanding access to healthy, affordable options.

• The authors describe UPFs as the result of a food system built around corporate profit rather than nutrition or sustainability. They warn that only a united global effort can counter the powerful political strategies used by UPF companies, which remain the biggest obstacle to effective policy reform and healthier diets worldwide.

Global Surge of Ultra-Processed Foods Sparks Urgent Health Warning
The growing presence of UPFs in diets around the world is creating a serious health challenge that, according to a new three paper Series published in The Lancet and written by 43 international specialists, requires coordinated policy efforts and strong advocacy. The Series describes how UPF manufacturers work to boost consumption and block policies designed to protect public health. It also presents a plan for moving toward effective government regulation, greater community engagement, and wider access to healthier and more affordable foods.

Professor Carlos Monteiro, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, explains, “The growing consumption of ultra-processed foods is reshaping diets worldwide, displacing fresh and minimally processed foods and meals. This change in what people eat is fueled by powerful global corporations who generate huge profits by prioritizing ultra-processed products, supported by extensive marketing and political lobbying to stop effective public health policies to support healthy eating.”

Saturn’s rings have disappeared! (Kind of.)

Due to their tilt from the perspective of Earth, the planet's rings have appeared to vanish. But don’t worry – as Saturn continues to rotate, the rings will become visible again. 🪐

The team demonstrated that this magnetic component significantly contributes to the Faraday Effect, even accounting for up to 70% of the rotation in the infrared range. By proving that light can magnetically torque materials, the findings open unexpected pathways for advanced optical and magnetic technologies.