Nadir ISS views of bright purple lightning flashing through clouds. Overhead observation of storms this large is best done from orbit, where we keep watch for rare spites and blue jets visible from above!

Researchers at Stanford Medicine report that blocking a protein linked to aging can restore cartilage that naturally wears away in the knees of older mice. In the study, the injectable treatment not only rebuilt cartilage but also stopped arthritis from developing after knee injuries similar to ACL tears, which are common among athletes and active adults. A pill-based version of the same therapy is already being tested in clinical trials aimed at treating muscle weakness associated with aging.

Human knee tissue collected during joint replacement surgeries also responded positively to the treatment. These samples, which include both the joint’s supporting extracellular scaffolding, or matrix, and cartilage-producing chondrocyte cells, began forming new cartilage that functioned normally.

Together, these findings point to the possibility that cartilage lost through aging or arthritis could one day be restored using a localized injection or an oral medication, potentially eliminating the need for knee or hip replacement surgery.

People and institutions are grappling with the consequences of AI-written text. Teachers want to know whether students’ work reflects their own understanding; consumers want to know whether an advertisement was written by a human or a machine.

Writing rules to govern the use of AI-generated content is relatively easy. Enforcing them depends on something much harder: reliably detecting whether a piece of text was generated by artificial intelligence.

Some studies have investigated whether humans can detect AI-generated text. For example, people who themselves use AI writing tools heavily have been shown to accurately detect AI-written text. A panel of human evaluators can even outperform automated tools in a controlled setting. However, such expertise is not widespread, and individual judgment can be inconsistent. Institutions that need consistency at a large scale therefore turn to automated AI text detectors.

Researchers from the Synaptic Physiology laboratory at the Institute for Neurosciences (IN), led by Juan Lerma, have identified a small but influential group of neurons in the amygdala that strongly affect emotional behavior. The Institute for Neurosciences (IN) is jointly run by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Miguel Hernández University (UMH) of Elche. Their findings show that disrupted activity in these neurons can contribute to anxiety, depression, and altered social behavior.

The study, published in iScience, demonstrates that correcting the balance of neuronal excitability within a specific part of the amygdala is sufficient to reverse these behavioral changes in mice. This result highlights how precise changes in brain activity can have wide effects on emotional regulation.

Every organ in the human body is built around networks of microscopic fibers that quietly guide how tissues work. In muscles, these fibers channel physical force. In the intestines, they support movement through the digestive system. In the brain, fiber pathways carry signals that allow different regions to communicate and support thinking and memory. Together, these tiny structures help organs function properly and maintain their shape.

Damage to these fiber networks plays a role in nearly every disease. In the brain, this damage shows up as disrupted connections between neurons, a defining feature of all neurological disorders.

Even though these fibers are central to health and disease, studying them has been difficult. Their small size and complex orientations inside tissues have made them hard to visualize using existing imaging tools.

A Simple Way to Reveal Invisible Microstructure
A research team led by Marios Georgiadis, PhD, instructor of neuroimaging, has now developed a straightforward and affordable technique that brings these hidden fiber structures into view with remarkable precision.

The discovery of Gravitational Waves (GWs) in 2015 confirmed a prediction made by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and led to a revolution in astronomy. These waves are produced when massive, compact objects (such as black holes and neutron stars) merge, creating ripples in spacetime that can be detected millions of light-years away. A decade later, researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) have proposed how GWs could be used to investigate an enduring cosmological mystery - the existence of Dark Matter.

The research comes from UvA's Institute of Physics(IoP) and the Gravitation & Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam (GRAPPA). Their research, which is detailed in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, introduces an improved way to model how Dark Matter is affected by GWs caused by black hole mergers. By analyzing GWs with next-generation instruments, scientists will be able to discern the presence of this mysterious mass, assuming (of course) that it exists.

The research was led by Rodrigo Vicente, Theophanes K. Karydas, and Gianfranco Bertone from the UvA-IoP and the GRAPPA centre of excellence for Gravitation and Astroparticle Physics Amsterdam. As they describe, their work focused on how black hole binaries or other compact objects (i.e., neutron stars) co-orbit with each other and spiral inward to become much more massive black holes - known as Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs).

🔵 Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA #Webb Space Telescope have found a new moon orbiting Uranus!

🔗esa.int/ESA_Multimedia…

#PPOD: Curiosity Sends Holiday Postcard from #Mars 🌄

Team members working with NASA’s MarsCuriosity created this “postcard” by commanding the rover to take images at two times of day on Nov. 18, 2025, spanning the 4,722nd and 4,723rd Martian days, or sols, of the mission.

The panoramas were captured at 4:15 p.m. on Sol 4,722 and 8:20 a.m. on Sol 4,723 (both at local Mars time), then merged together. Color was later added for an artistic interpretation of the scene, with blue representing the morning panorama and yellow representing the afternoon one. The resulting “postcard” is similar to ones the rover took in June 2023 and November 2021. Adding color to these kinds of merged images helps different details stand out in the landscape.

Credit: NASA NASAJPL Caltech

A few years ago, asteroid mining was all the rage. With the commercial space sector rapidly growing, the dream of commercializing space seemed almost imminent.

Basically, the notion of having platforms and spacecraft that could rendezvous and mine Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), then return them to space-based foundries, was right up there with sending commercial crews to Mars.

After a great deal of speculation and ventures going under, these plans were placed on the back burner until the technology matured and other milestones could be accomplished first.

Related: Are Asteroids Really Worth a Fortune? Here's What We Know.

Nevertheless, the dream of asteroid mining and the "post-scarcity" future it would bring remains. In addition to the need for more infrastructure and technical development, further research is needed to determine the chemical composition of small asteroids.

In a recent study, a team led by researchers from the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) analyzed samples of C-type (carbon-rich) asteroids, which account for 75% of known asteroids. Their findings demonstrate that these asteroids could be a crucial source of raw materials, presenting opportunities for future resource exploitation.

The ancient evolution of fish mouths could help solve a modern source of plastic pollution.

Inspired by these natural filtration systems, scientists in Germany have invented a way to remove 99 percent of plastic particles from water. It's based on how some fish filter-feed to eat microscopic prey.

The research team has already filed a patent in Germany, and in the future, they hope their creation will help curb a ubiquitous form of plastic pollution that many are unaware of.

Every time a load of laundry is done, millions of microplastics are washed from the fibers of our clothes into local waterways.

By some estimates, up to 90 percent of plastic in 'sewage sludge' comes from washing machines. This material is then often used in agriculture as soil or fertilizer, possibly exposing those who eat the resulting crops to these pollutants.

At this stage, it is unclear what microplastics are doing to human health when they invade our bones and organs, but some toxicologists are concerned by their initial findings among animals.

Figuring out a way to capture plastic pollutants before they leave our washing machines is challenging work. Current filtration systems available on the market can easily become clogged.

Researchers at the University of Bonn and the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology turned to nature for inspiration. They decided to make a water filtration system that mimics the mouths of some fish, like mackerel, sardines, and anchovies.

These ocean creatures swim through the water with their mouths open to feed on tiny plankton. Over millions of years, they have evolved comb-like structures inside their mouths that capture microscopic prey.

2026 is shaping up to be a spectacular year for lunar exploration, with a growing fleet of commercial missions set to attempt to land on Earth's celestial neighbor.

It will be a huge year for the moon overall. NASA plans to send humans back to the vicinity of the moon with the Artemis 2 mission no earlier than February, while China, in the second half of the year, aims to land at the lunar south pole and seek out water ice with its robotic Chang'e 7 spacecraft. But it's not only national agencies targeting Earth's companion, as commercial companies are also taking aim with a series of robotic landers at what could be the start of a sustained, more market-driven lunar presence for humanity.

Hubble found Cloud Nine! ☁️

This is a "failed galaxy": a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud considered a remnant of early galaxy formation.

Nicknamed “Cloud-9,” this is the first confirmed detection of such an object in the universe: go.nasa.gov/4svSJtm

Congress is not on board with President Donald Trump's deep NASA budget cuts.

The White House allocated just $18.8 billion to the space agency — a 24% decrease from the previous year's funding — in its 2026 federal budget request, which was released last spring. The cuts were particularly harsh toward NASA's science portfolio, which was given just $3.9 billion — a drop of about 75%.

However, the federal budget request is just that: a request. Congress controls the nation's purse strings, and lawmakers just threw NASA a lifeline.

On Monday (Jan. 5), the House of Representatives and the Senate released a budget plan that would give the agency $24.4 billion in fiscal year 2026, which started on Oct. 1.

Much of the restored funding would go to NASA science programs.
"The bill rejects the administration’s devastating proposal to cut NASA Science by 47% and terminate 55 operating and planned missions. It instead provides $7.25 billion," a Senate bill summary states.

The budget plan is not the last word, however. The House and the Senate still need to vote on the bill — actions that could take place as soon as this week and the week after, respectively, according to Ars Technica's Eric Berger. President Trump would then need to sign it.

RNA, which is one of life's most crucial molecules dealing with the synthesis of proteins, could be common in the universe, according to a new experiment that shows how RNA could easily have formed on Earth 4.3 billion years ago.

RNA (short for ribonucleic acid) is a simpler cousin of DNA, which is the molecule that contains the genetic information for our cellular biology. RNA comes in a trio of guises. There is messenger RNA (mRNA) that is produced from DNA and contains the genetic instructions for forming proteins. Then there's ribosomal RNA (rRNA) that creates ribosomes vital for producing proteins, and finally transfer RNA (tRNA) that does the actual synthesizing of the proteins from mRNA.

Because it is a simpler molecule than DNA, RNA is thought to have formed first, and thanks to its ability to carry genetic information and create other molecules, RNA has even been heralded as a possible main player in the story of the origin of life on Earth in a hypothesis colloquially known as "RNA world." In this scenario, the first single-celled lifeforms would have used RNA rather than DNA for self-replicating and copying their genetic information.

Understanding how RNA formed has, however, been challenging. What prompted RNA's ingredients to come together just so and undergo the correct series of chemical reactions? On the face of it, the odds of RNA forming just by chance seem astronomical.

So chemists look for pathways that could inevitably lead to the formation of molecules like RNA. One pathway is known as the six-step Discontinuous Synthesis Model (DSM).

However, one of the stumbling blocks on this pathway is borate, which is a family of common compounds found in seawater. Borates are oxyanions; if ions are atoms or molecules that have a positive electrical charge, then anions have an overall negative electrical charge. Further, borates contain atoms of both boron and oxygen. The problem is that it had been thought that borates hinder some of the reactions on the chemical pathway to RNA.

Now, a team of biochemists led by Yuta Hirakawa of Tohoku University in Japan and the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida say that chemists have been getting it wrong and that borates are actually beneficial to the formation of RNA.

Watch Rare Footage Of The Giant Phantom Jellyfish, A 10-Meter-Long "Ghost" That's Only Been Seen Around 100 Times

Plunge 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) below the ocean’s surface, and there can be found the midnight zone, where the complete lack of sunlight and extreme cold and pressure have led to the evolution of all manner of ethereal weirdos. One of the rarest members of the gang? The giant phantom jellyfish (Stygiomedusa gigantea). Read more

Galaxies might be separated by hundreds of thousands of light-years at the very least, but they do occasionally merge. During those collisions, the supermassive black holes that sit at the center of those galaxies can become active, entering a feeding frenzy thanks to fresh supplies of gas being thrown towards the core by the merger. For the first time, researchers report a three-way merger with all three supermassive black holes active and emitting in radio waves at the same time.

The system is known as J1218/1219+1035, and is located 1.2 billion light-years from us. The three nuclei of the three galaxies, where the supermassive black holes reside, have a separation of roughly 22,000 and 97,000 light-years. The merger is not imminent on human timescales, but they are getting there.

Large spiral galaxies like the Milky Way have grown in size thanks to interactions with smaller companions. Large elliptical galaxies are the product of collisions between spiral galaxies; likely how it will happen between the Milky Way and Andromeda in several billion years. Getting three galaxies merging is a lot less common, and getting all three of them active is rarer still.

“Triple active galaxies like this are incredibly rare, and catching one in the middle of a merger gives us a front-row seat to how massive galaxies and their black holes grow together,” lead author Dr Emma Schwartzman of the US Naval Research Laboratory said in a statement. 

For these cheetahs, even a successful hunt can still end in failure.

In 1917, a group of German soldiers arrived at a military hospital near Freiburg after returning from a campaign in Dobrudja, a region of the Balkans that had been riddled with disease. All of the troops had been struck down with a nasty case of dysentery caused by the Shigella group of bacteria – except for one soldier, who was remarkably unaffected by the deadly illness that struck down his comrades.

The case caught the attention of Professor Alfred Nissle, a physician at the hospital who had grown increasingly interested in the bacterial contents of the human intestine. 

Experiments inside a fusion reactor in China have demonstrated a new way to circumvent one of the caps on the density of the superheated plasma swirling inside.

At the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), physicists successfully exceeded what is known as the Greenwald limit, a practical density boundary beyond which plasmas tend to violently destabilize, often damaging reactor components.

For a long time, the Greenwald limit was accepted as a given and incorporated into fusion reactor engineering. The new work shows that precise control over how the plasma is created and interacts with the reactor walls can push it beyond this limit into what physicists call a 'density-free' regime.

Fusion reactors are designed to replicate the intense nuclear fusion that occurs in the heart of the Sun, generating vast amounts of energy. There are a number of significant barriers to overcome – one of which is plasma density.

In a rare move, NASA is cutting a mission aboard the International Space Station short after an astronaut had a medical issue.

The space agency said Thursday the U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew of four will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than planned.

NASA canceled its first spacewalk of the year because of the health issue. The space agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical issue, citing patient privacy. The crew member is now stable.

NASA officials stressed that it was not an onboard emergency, but are "erring on the side of caution for the crew member," said Dr. James Polk, NASA's chief health and medical officer.

Polk said this was NASA's first medical evacuation from the space station although astronauts have been treated aboard for things like toothaches and ear pain.