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New Study Reveals Most Planets in Our Galaxy Are Born ‘Bloated’

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Astronomers have made significant strides in understanding how the most prevalent type of planet in our galaxy, known as super-Earths, forms. A new study highlights that these planets begin life as “bloated” infants, rapidly shedding much of their thick atmospheres.

This groundbreaking research, published in Nature, observed four youthful exoplanets within the V1298 Tau system. Remarkably, their host star is merely 20 million years old—akin to a 5-month-old baby in cosmic terms.

Currently, these planets boast radii 5 to 10 times larger than Earth, but their masses only range from 5 to 15 times that of Earth, resulting in a density similar to that of Styrofoam.

This “bloated” state occurs as the young star’s heat and light cause the planet’s atmosphere to expand dramatically. Consequently, these planets are losing significant amounts of gas into space, eventually leading to a reduction in size to somewhere between that of Earth and Neptune.

Super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, as they are often called, have been detected around numerous other stars, establishing them as the most ubiquitous type of planet known today. However, they remain absent in our solar system.

Lacking nearby examples to study these intermediate worlds in detail has made them a “missing link” in our understanding of planetary formation and evolution.













“V1298 Tau is a crucial link between star- and planet-forming nebulae visible across the sky and the mature planetary systems we are currently discovering in abundance,” stated Dr. Eric Pettigura from the University of California, who was involved in the research.

Astronomers had speculated about this growth pattern for infant planets based on their sizes, but this marks the first instance of direct observation of the phenomenon.

“These planets have already experienced rapid changes, significantly losing their original atmospheres and cooling more swiftly than traditional models predict,” noted James Owen, a co-author from Imperial College London.

“Their evolution is ongoing. Over the next few billion years, they will continue to shed atmospheres and reduce in size, eventually forming a compact system of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes widely observed throughout the galaxy.”

A Stroke of Luck

As with many astronomical breakthroughs, this discovery resulted from both serendipity and diligent effort.

The researchers analyzed the planets by monitoring their transits—temporary declines in a star’s brightness when a planet moves in front of it. The depth of this dip indicates the planet’s radius, while the timing offers insights into its orbit.

Planets block only a small fraction of a star’s light, typically around 1%, making their detection a challenging endeavor. – Credit: ESA

While scientists were aware that these planets were on the larger side, part of the transits for the two outer planets was missed, leaving uncertainties about their orbits.

“We used computer models and educated guesses to narrow down hundreds of possibilities,” Pettigura explained.

Fortunately, their predictions proved accurate. Upon searching for the planets again using ground-based telescopes, they successfully located them on the first attempt.

“I was thrilled,” Pettigura remarked. “Given the uncertain timing, I anticipated needing at least six attempts. It felt like hitting a hole-in-one in golf.”

Once the orbits were confirmed, the team conducted a detailed analysis to determine the planets’ masses.

As planets move past each other, their gravitational forces subtly alter their orbits, affecting transit timings. The greater a planet’s mass, the stronger its gravitational pull. This enabled the researchers to differentiate timing variations to ascertain the planets’ masses.

“The unexpectedly large radii of these young planets led to the hypothesis of very low densities, which had not been previously measured,” stated Trevor David of the Flatiron Institute, who was a co-author on the first discovery of this system.

“By measuring the masses of these planets for the first time, we have provided crucial observational evidence that validates their ‘bulgy’ characteristics, establishing a significant benchmark for planetary evolution theory.”

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Discovering the Truth: Are Psychopaths Born or Made? New Insights Revealed

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Is Psychopathy Inherited or Acquired? This question is more complex than it seems. For years, psychopathy was deemed a mysterious condition, and to some extent, it continues to mystify.

Many mental, neurological, and personality disorders instill fear in people. This fear often stems from ignorance and misconceptions.

Psychopathy, a type of personality disorder, elicits strong negative reactions, primarily due to its associations with emotional insensitivity, deviant behaviors, and criminality.

While only about 1% of the general population shows signs of psychopathy, this figure jumps to 25% within the prison community.

What exactly triggers psychopathy? Are individuals born psychopaths, or are they shaped by adverse experiences? This touches on the age-old debate of nature versus nurture.

Despite advancements in science, the concept of personality remains challenging to define, making discussions around individual differences equally complex.

This complexity extends to psychopathy, as illustrated in Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test, which highlights the challenges in reliably diagnosing psychopathy.

Despite these challenges, most would agree that psychopathy is a genuine psychological condition, albeit difficult to identify accurately. Recent research has shed light on this intricate issue.

Utilizing brain imaging methods like fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), scientists have discovered that psychopathy correlates with distinct brain structure differences.

Studies show that psychopathy is linked to anatomical differences in key brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and temporal lobe.

If psychopathy is innate, it raises profound questions about the evolutionary purpose of such traits. – Image credit: Getty

These brain regions have diverse functions, but their specific combination significantly impacts emotional processing. The structural differences may impair the brain’s ability to recognize, encode, and interpret emotional information.

As emotions play a crucial role in human cognition, a deficiency in emotional understanding might contribute to hallmark traits of psychopathy, including a pronounced lack of empathy and an overreliance on rational thought.

Determining why certain individuals possess specific brain features remains a challenge. Genetic factors appear to be involved, as indicated by research studies.

While a person’s environment and experiences may exacerbate psychopathic traits, it is uncertain if such factors can consistently alter both brain structure and genetics.

Overall, evidence leans toward the idea that psychopathy is more likely innate than acquired.

However, whether such a mental disorder manifests is a different question altogether.

This article answers the query by Elliott Owens of St. Albans: “Is psychopathy innate or acquired?”

For inquiries, please reach out via: questions@sciencefocus.com or message us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (please include your name and location).

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

Keeper Review – A Dazzling Eco-Fantasy Born from Imagination

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TThe world of the Keeper flows from the screen like a vivid dream painted with psilocybin hues. It’s an intricate land filled with bubblegum blues, soft pinks, and bizarre glowing creatures, where evolution seems to happen in an instant. The stunning visuals evoke the charm of a 1980s fantasy film, complete with lovingly crafted practical effects. Keeper is the newest creation from Double Fine, known for their quirky platformer Psychonauts 2, the Kickstarter sensation Broken Age, and various other unique titles. This action-adventure game highlights the beauty of life’s imperfections, resembling a scene sculpted from papier-mâché instead of polished digital designs.

The main character is even more peculiar—the player embodies a lighthouse, illuminating this enchanting ecological landscape. Long shadows trail behind glowing objects, revealing the outlines of colossal plants and tiny creatures. Light projection serves as your means of interaction with the environment, often causing flora to sprout right before your eyes while some rare inhabitants stay nourished by it. As you explore serene lagoons or sunlit canyons dotted with cacti, you’ll find delight in simply observing, embracing the oddity, and nurturing it into even more extraordinary life.




Solve the mystery…Keeper. Photo: Xbox Game Studios

Your role as a life-giving lighthouse develops when you find a companion—a bird named Twig with a driftwood beak. You assume dual responsibilities, having your feathered friend assist in various tasks (on this distant future Earth, the organic blends with the mechanical, reminiscent of a steampunk Henry David Thoreau). However, these puzzles fall short of matching the visual creativity and don’t resonate with the game’s biological themes; early on, you merely rotate the analog stick to align gears.

Often, puzzles feel like barriers to exploration rather than facilitators. Yet, gradually, Keeper embraces the surreal elements of its world to unveil surprises. At one point, a cotton candy-like substance envelops the lighthouse, rendering it weightless. Instead of stumbling awkwardly, it gracefully leaps, gliding through the air.

Soon, the Keeper taps into an evolutionary rhythm as the lighthouse transforms into a fish-inspired boat. The thrill of swaying and swirling in azure waters is delightful! However, the gameplay takes a darker, more abstract twist, as players become disks of red-hot metal, slicing through tangled underbrush like a primitive Sonic the Hedgehog.




Surreal setting…keeper. Photo: Xbox Game Studios

Marketed as “a story told without words,” Keeper communicates most vividly through its expansive visuals. However, this claim is misleading. Throughout the game, button prompts intermittently appear, instructing players on actions like pressing X to “peck.” This clarity detracts from the world’s intended ambiguity.

A similar issue arises towards the game’s conclusion, albeit from a different perspective. Without revealing too much, players confront the profound and unfathomable essence of existence. How can we engage with such transcendental depth? Unfortunately, some puzzles rely on memorization of shapes, including a kaleidoscopic crystal and a black hole. In essence, Keeper struggles with a limited interactive vocabulary to fully harness the extraordinary imagery crafted with such vivid imagination.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Children Born from Donor Mitochondria Are Thriving Today

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Mitochondria supply energy to cells, yet mutations can lead to defects

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Eight young children are believed to be shielded from severe genetic disorders after being born through a procedure that replaces the mother’s faulty mitochondria with those from female donors.

Approximately 1 in 5,000 individuals inherit defective mitochondria, which are responsible for energy production in cells and passed down solely from mothers. Such defects can stem from genetic mutations leading to serious health issues like blindness, seizures, and even death. “Families face immense challenges with these conditions, as they are devastating,” said Bobby McFarland of Newcastle University in the UK.

In 2015, the UK became the first nation to sanction a technique known as pronuclear transfer for women at high risk of transmitting mitochondrial diseases who may not benefit from genetic testing prior to the transplant.

This technique involves utilizing eggs from both the mothers and donors, then fertilizing them with sperm from the father via IVF. After approximately 10 hours, the nuclei from both eggs are removed. This separates the crucial genetic material from the mitochondrial DNA.

The nucleus from the mother is subsequently inserted into the donor’s egg, resulting in an embryo that retains most of the genetic information from its biological parent while gaining mitochondria from the donor. It’s important to note that some maternal mitochondrial DNA could still be passed on unintentionally, as mentioned by Burt Smeet of Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

McFarland, who pioneered this approach with colleagues, has since employed the technique on 19 women possessing harmful mutations in over 80% of their mitochondria, typically the threshold for complications.

Following the transfer of the last embryo, seven women achieved pregnancies, resulting in the birth of eight healthy babies, including one set of twins.

Blood samples taken from the newborns were analyzed, revealing no harmful mitochondrial DNA mutations in five of them, while the other three showed only minimal levels. “The results have met our expectations,” noted Mike Murphy at Cambridge University.

Months or even years after undergoing nuclear transfer, some of the children have encountered challenges in reaching developmental milestones. Some have faced complications, potentially related to the transfer process. For instance, one child experienced elevated blood lipid levels and an irregular heartbeat, both of which were treated successfully, while another developed epilepsy at seven months, which resolved itself over time.

The research team intends to monitor the children to assess the long-term effects of this procedure.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The world’s first IVF baby was born with very little human intervention

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What health professionals see when overseeing IVF procedures via live streams

Possible life sciences

A highly automated form of in vitro fertilization (IVF) leads to successful births and we hope that this approach can reduce the risk of artificial errors during such procedures.

One method of IVF is intratesticular sperm injection (ICSI). Here, sperm is injected into the egg into the lab dish. This is commonly used in cases of male infertility, as the sperm does not need to work to reach the egg. The resulting embryo is then inserted into the uterus. IVF can also be done by mixing sperm and eggs into a lab dish in the hopes of fertilization being performed, which is generally less successful, but requires fewer medical interventions.

ICSI also suffer from drawbacks as it relies on high levels of accuracy and judgment from healthcare professionals. “Like everyone else in most professions, they are sometimes tired and distracted. [the] “Fertilization and the possibility of birth.” Jack Cohen With the Life Sciences, a biotech company in New York City.

To address this, Cohen and his colleagues developed a machine that can perform the 23 important steps required for ICSI. Each is started by a person by pressing a button when watching the live stream of the process. This can also be done from another part of the world.

In one step, the machine uses an AI model to select the healthiest sperm cells for fertilization based on appearance. In other cases, the machine will fix sperm by laying its tail with a laser to make it easier to pick up. The sperm is later injected into the already collected eggs. A similar approach has been tested previously, As a result, two births are bornhowever, some steps were not performed by the machine.

To test the machine, researchers recruited couples struggling to get pregnant because the man had sperm that he couldn’t swim properly. Women also had problems with egg production, so donors’ items were used in the procedure.

The researchers randomly allocated five of the eight donor eggs to be fertilized by an automated system that generated the four embryos. The remaining three eggs were fertilized using a standard manual ICSI approach. All of these formed embryos.

We then used another AI model to select two best embryos based on the appearance of the chromosomes. Both of these were generated using automated systems, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this approach leads to healthier embryos than manual ICSI, Cohen says. This cannot be measured because there are fewer eggs involved, he says.

When the team inserts one of the embryos into the female uterus, it fails to develop, but the second successfully birth.

It’s an exciting proof of concept, I say Joyce Harper University College London. However, large-scale studies that randomly assign couples to be randomly assigned to perform either automated or manual LCSI procedures should establish whether the former approach leads to increased fertility rates, she says.

Harper said automated IVFs are unlikely to be widely used, as they are at an additional cost, at least if they were first deployed. But Cohen hopes this will improve over time. “We expect patients and clinics to decline as we optimize, standardize and refine our systems,” he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Five children born deaf regain their hearing through gene therapy

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Gene therapy involves administering normal copies of the mutated gene that causes a particular disease.

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Five Chinese children born deaf have received gene therapy that provides them with a healthy copy of a mutated gene, allowing them to hear in both ears. Although the children have varying degrees of hearing loss, all can now hear and localize sounds at conversational volume.

Six months after treatment, the five children’s hearing was about 50 to 60 percent of normal levels, team members say. Chen Yi Chen “They get confused when we whisper, but normal conversation is fine,” he said at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. “We’re very happy.”

In the first phase of the trial, which began in 2022, the team gave another group of six children in China the gene therapy in just one ear. Five of the six children had their hearing restored in the treated ear, with continued improvement, Chen said.

The team expects to see further progress in the second group of five children. “The progress we’re seeing now isn’t the peak,” Chen says. “We expect to see even more progress.”

The trial in China is the first of several ongoing trials around the world. She lives in the UK with her two children. There have also been reports in the United States of people regaining hearing in one ear after undergoing gene therapy.

“The tests are all pretty much the same.” Manohar Bans Doctors from Cambridge University treated two children in the UK.

All of the children in these trials were born with hearing loss because they carry a mutation in both copies of the gene for a protein called otoferin, which plays a key role in synapses, or connections, between the hair cells in the ear that detect sound and the nerves that transmit signals to the brain. The mutation affects the protein, blocking the transmission of signals.

Between 2 and 8 percent of children worldwide who are born with hearing loss are thought to have this condition, known as DFNB9.

Both parents of a child with DFNB9 have normal hearing if they each have just one mutant copy of otoferlin. These couples are often unaware that they have a one in four chance of having a child that is born deaf.

Gene therapy relies on the help of a virus called AAV to deliver a working version of the otoferlin gene to hair cells. Due to the gene’s large size, it needs to be split and put into two separate viruses.

The virus cocktail is injected into the inner ear, and the complete gene is reconstituted in cells that receive both halves. The DFNB9 trial marks the first time that so-called dual AAV gene therapy has been used to treat humans.

“This is a major technological advance,” Chen says, “and we hope that this technology will be widely used to treat other genetic diseases.”

The clinical trials will begin by treating one ear at a time because half the dose of AAV is needed, reducing the chance of adverse events, he says. No serious adverse events have been reported in any of the trials.

Chen’s team now plans to treat the other ears of the first group of children. This could be difficult because an immune response to the initial AAV injection could block gene delivery, but Chen believes it is possible.

Treating other inherited hearing loss is more difficult because some of the structures inside the ear degenerate. With DFNB9, all of the structures remain intact. “You only need to repair one element,” Chen says.

Some people believe that hearing loss is not a disease that needs treatment, Martin MacLean The position of the National Society for Deaf Children. Families should be free to make their own informed decisions.

“Parents and young people need to be aware of all the risks and, above all, understand that hearing loss in itself does not prevent people from living a happy and fulfilling life,” he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com