Provisionally designated “Noctis volcano” pending an official name, the structure is centered at 7° 35′ S, 93° 55′ W. It reaches +9022 meters (29,600 feet) in elevation and spans 450 kilometers (280 miles) in width. The volcano’s gigantic size and complex modification history indicate that it has been active for a very long time. In its southeastern part lies a thin, recent volcanic deposit beneath which glacier ice is likely still present. This combined giant volcano and possible glacier ice discovery is significant, as it points to an exciting new location to study Mars’ geologic evolution through time, search for life, and explore with robots and humans in the future.

“We were examining the geology of an area where we had found the remains of a glacier last year when we realized we were inside a huge and deeply eroded volcano,” said Dr. Pascal Lee, planetary scientist with the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute based at NASA Ames Research Center, and the lead author of the study.

Several clues, taken together, give away the volcanic nature of the jumble of layered mesas and canyons in this eastern part of Noctis Labyrinthus. The central summit area is marked by several elevated mesas forming an arc, reaching a regional high and sloping downhill away from the summit area. The gentle outer slopes extend out to 225 kilometers (140 miles) away in different directions. A caldera remnant — the remains of a collapsed volcanic crater once host to a lava lake — can be seen near the center of the structure. Lava flows, pyroclastic deposits (made of volcanic particulate materials such as ash, cinders, pumice and tephra) and hydrated mineral deposits occur in several areas within the structure’s perimeter.

“This area of Mars is known to have a wide variety of hydrated minerals spanning a long stretch of Martian history. A volcanic setting for these minerals had long been suspected. So, it may not be too surprising to find a volcano here,” explained Sourabh Shubham, a graduate student at the University of Maryland’s Department of Geology and the study’s co-author. “In some sense, this large volcano is a long-sought ‘smoking gun’.”

In addition to the volcano, the study reports the discovery of a large, 5000 square kilometer (1930 square mile) area of volcanic deposits within the volcano’s perimeter presenting a large number of low, rounded and elongated, blister-like mounds. This “blistered terrain” is interpreted to be a field of “rootless cones,” mounds produced by explosive steam venting or steam swelling when a thin blanket of hot volcanic materials comes to rest on top of a water or ice-rich surface.

Just a year ago, Lee, Shubham and their colleague John W. Schutt had identified the spectacular remains of a glacier — or “relict glacier” — through a sizeable erosional opening in the same volcanic blanket, in the form of a light-toned deposit (LTD) of sulfate salt with the morphologic traits of a glacier. The sulfate deposit, made mainly of jarosite, a hydrous sulfate, was interpreted to have formed when the blanket of volcanic pyroclastic materials came to rest on a glacier and reacted chemically with the ice. Breached rootless cones identified in the current study show similar occurrences of polyhydrated sulfates, further suggesting the blistered volcanic blanket may be hiding a vast sheet of glacier ice underneath it.

The Noctis volcano presents a long and complex history of modification, possibly from a combination of fracturing, thermal erosion, and glacial erosion. Researchers interpret the volcano to be a vast shield made of layered accumulations of pyroclastic materials, lavas, and ice, the latter resulting from repeated buildups of snow and glaciers on its flanks through time. As fractures and faults eventually developed, in particular in connection with the uplift of the broader Tharsis region on which the volcano sits, lavas began to rise through different parts of the volcano, leading to thermal erosion and removal of vast amounts of buried ice and the catastrophic collapse of entire sections of the volcano.

Subsequent glaciations continued their erosion, giving many canyons within the structure their present distinctive shape. In this context the “relict glacier” and the possible buried sheet of glacier ice around it, might be remnants of the latest glaciation episode affecting the Noctis volcano.

But much about the newly discovered giant volcano remains a mystery. Although it is clear that it has been active for a long time and began to build up early in Mars’ history, it is unknown how early exactly. Similarly, although it has experienced eruptions even in modern times, it is unknown if it is still volcanically active and might erupt again. And if it has been active for a very long time, could the combination of sustained warmth and water from ice have allowed the site to harbor life?

As mysteries surrounding the Noctis volcano continue to puzzle scientists, the site is already emerging as an exciting new location to study Mars’ geologic evolution, search for life, and plan future robotic and human exploration. The possible presence of glacier ice at shallow depths near the equator means that humans could potentially explore a less frigid part of the planet while still being able to extract water for hydration and manufacturing rocket fuel (by breaking down H2O into hydrogen and oxygen).

“It’s really a combination of things that makes the Noctis volcano site exceptionally exciting. It’s an ancient and long-lived volcano so deeply eroded that you could hike, drive, or fly through it to examine, sample, and date different parts of its interior to study Mars’ evolution through time. It has also had a long history of heat interacting with water and ice, which makes it a prime location for astrobiology and our search for signs of life. Finally, with glacier ice likely still preserved near the surface in a relatively warm equatorial region on Mars, the place is looking very attractive for robotic and human exploration,” said Lee.

This study was conducted using data from NASA’s Mariner 9, Viking Orbiter 1 and 2, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions, as well as ESA’s Mars Express mission. Special appreciation is expressed to their instrument teams for acquiring the various datasets used in this study. Use of the open NASA Planetary Data System, Mars Quickmap, Mars Trek, and Google Mars online data visualization tools was also key in enabling the study.

Published today as a research letter in The Lancet, their study compared the newer monovalent COVID vaccine, which specifically targets the XBB variant of Omicron (as recommended by the World Health Organisation), with older bivalent vaccines containing a mix of an Omicron variant and the original strain of COVID-19, which the UK deployed in Autumn 2023 before turning to monovalent vaccines¹.

The researchers found that both vaccines generated neutralising antibodies against the most recent strain of Omicron, BA.2.86. However, the new monovalent vaccine generated higher levels of antibodies against a range of other Omicron variants.

The team collected blood and nasal mucosal samples both before and after a fifth dose vaccination from 71 participants of the Legacy study, a research collaboration between the Crick and the NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre. They compared the antibody levels before and after vaccination.

All 36 participants who received the bivalent vaccine and 17 who received the monovalent vaccine had boosted levels of antibodies against all variants tested, including the newest strain BA.2.86, which caused a wave of infection this winter. But those with the newer monovalent vaccine had 3.5x higher levels of antibodies against the XBB and BQ.1.1 strains after their booster vaccination.

Since the Omicron virus is highly transmissible and the virus replicates in the nose and throat, the researchers tested the levels of antibodies in the participants’ nasal cavity.

They found that the monovalent vaccine increased their ability to produce mucosal antibodies against most of the tested variants, whereas the bivalent vaccine didn’t provide a significant boost.

Neither vaccine increased neutralising antibody levels in the nasal cavity against the newest variant, BA.2.86, suggesting that current vaccines may be less likely to stop transmission or prevent asymptomatic or mild illness, while still protecting against severe disease.

This highlights the importance of careful vaccine updates and continuing to complement a vaccination programme with the development of antibody drugs that work against all variants, as some more vulnerable people don’t respond well to vaccines.

Emma Wall, Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Crick and Consultant in Infectious Diseases at UCLH, said: “The UK’s strategy to deploy stocks of older vaccines paid off last year, as both vaccines provided equal protection against the newest strain. However, ongoing monitoring is needed, as the virus is continuing to evolve, so vaccine-induced antibodies might not work so well in the future. In the long run, vaccines that are effective against all new variants and can block COVID-19 being transmitted from person to person are needed.”

David LV Bauer, Group Leader of the RNA Virus Replication Laboratory at the Crick, said: “The situation this winter could have been different if the newly emerged BA.2.86 and JN.1 variants were substantially distinct from older Omicron variants, but fortunately this wasn’t the case.

“Most new variants arise quicker than most clinical trials can produce data. But laboratory analysis can provide a detailed picture very quickly. Continued surveillance will help us stay on top of viral evolution.”

That is what Ben-Gurion University of the Negev physicist Prof. Hezi Yizhaq and Prof. Itzhak Katra and their colleagues from Denmark, Germany, Italy, China, and the US contend in a cover article published in Nature Geoscience.

Sand ripples photographed on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover in 2015 showed two distinct patterns — large ripples (meter scale) and a shorter “impact” ripples pattern (decimeter scale). The prevailing theory proposed since then argues that the smaller scale ripples are produced by the impact mechanism of the particles transported by the wind like normal ripples on Earth and the larger ripples form due to hydrodynamic instability like subaqueous ripples. Furthermore, it was believed that the physical conditions that produced them on Mars could not produce them on Earth.

However, Prof. Yizhaq and Prof. Katra have proven experimentally using Ben-Gurion University’s wind tunnel and Aarhus University’s Mars tunnel that such a phenomenon could exist on Earth — we just haven’t noticed it yet because we didn’t know we should be looking for it.

Imitating Martian sand was not easy because it’s finer than sand here on Earth, explains Prof. Yizhaq, but the breakthrough occurred when they decided to try tiny glass balls to represent fine grains of sand.

Furthermore, the international research team has proposed a unified theoretical framework that would explain sand ripples on Mars and on Earth. At its most basic level, sand ripples on Mars caused by wind look like sand ripples on Earth caused by water.

“There is much more research, both fieldwork and experimentally, needed to prove our theory, but it is amazing to propose something so radically new in a field I have been studying for over 20 years. It is exciting to go out and try to find on Earth what can clearly be seen on Mars,” says Prof. Yizhaq.

Prof. Yizhaq is a member of the Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics. Prof. Itzhak Katra is a member of the Department of Environmental, Geoinformatics and Urban Planning Sciences.

The research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant no. 1270/20), the German-Israel Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF) (Grant no. 155-301.10/2018), the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, Europlanet grant no. 871149, and the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program.

“Our earlier work introduced the idea of a fourth traffic signal called a ‘white phase,’ which taps into the computing power of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in order to expedite traffic at intersections — but we had not yet incorporated what this concept would mean for pedestrians,” says Ali Hajbabaie, corresponding author of the paper and an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. “We’ve now expanded our computational modeling to account for foot traffic, and the results are extremely promising for both pedestrians and vehicles.”

The white phase concept makes use of AVs’ ability to communicate wirelessly with both each other and the computers that control the traffic signals. When enough AVs are approaching the intersection, this would activate a new traffic light — the white light. While red lights mean stop, and green lights mean go, white lights tell human drivers to simply follow the car in front of them. In short, the white light is a signal that AVs are coordinating their movement to facilitate traffic through the intersection more efficiently.

“Our previous research found that the more AVs there are on the road, the more efficiently the traffic moves,” Hajbabaie says. “To be clear, this improves travel time, fuel efficiency and safety for all of the cars on the road — not just AVs.”

To account for pedestrian traffic, the researchers incorporated a suite of new parameters into the optimization model that assessed the impact foot traffic would have on all traffic through an intersection.

“We found that, when pedestrians are added into the mix, the white phase concept still improves traffic efficiency for everyone,” Hajbabaie says. “And, again, the higher the percentage of traffic that is made up of AVs, the more efficiently traffic moves through intersections.

“If at some point in the future we see almost universal adoption of AVs, our models suggest that delays at intersections would decrease by more than 25%. More realistically, we will eventually see a lower percentage of wirelessly connected AVs on the road, but there would still be meaningful improvements in traffic time.”

The researchers know that governments will not be adopting these new traffic technologies in the immediate future, but are already taking steps to ensure that future pilot projects will be safe and effective.

“We are currently setting up a physical testbed that will allow us to experiment with this concept in the physical world — not just in a computer model,” Hajbabaie says. “However, the vehicles we are using in the testbed are small enough to hold in your hands. This will help us identify challenges in implementation without the expense — and safety risk — involved with using full-scale vehicles. In the meantime, we are open to working with industry and research partners to explore ways to move forward with these technologies.”

The study could serve as a blueprint for assessing anti-racist interventions.

“Young people are aware of racial injustice and related social issues, and schools are interested in helping students understand racial justice and develop the tools they need to discuss these issues in a meaningful way,” says Kelly Lynn Mulvey, co-author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University.

“There are multiple programs that aim to help schools accomplish these goals,” Mulvey says. “In this study, we wanted to determine how effective one such program was. Did it help students understand racial justice issues? Did it make them more comfortable talking about these issues? Were there any unintended effects on the students?”

For the study, researchers from NC State, Duke University and Dickinson College worked in partnership with a public high school to assess the impact of a classroom intervention aimed at helping students understand and discuss issues related to racism. The intervention was conducted for 45 minutes once a week for 10 weeks. Specifically, the researchers did an assessment of 227 students before the intervention and three months after the intervention, aimed at capturing how engaged students were, how students related with staff, the extent to which students felt that they belonged in the school community, student stress, and the extent to which students perceived social inequality.

In addition, 67 of the study participants also completed daily surveys for three weeks during the intervention. These surveys were designed to capture daily fluctuations in each student’s stress levels and feelings of belonging.

“One of the key findings was that 60% of study participants reported being highly engaged with the intervention, and another 20% were passively/somewhat engaged,” says Jackie Cerda-Smith, first author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at NC State.

“Students in our study were actively interested in learning about and discussing issues related to racism,” says Mulvey. “And the highly engaged group demonstrated significant growth in their awareness of social inequality after the intervention.

“We also found that there was no increase in stress — or decrease in feelings of belonging — on days when students were involved in the anti-racism intervention,” Mulvey says. “That was true for all 67 participants who did daily surveys, regardless of how engaged they were in the intervention.”

“A lot of the opposition to addressing racism in schools hinges on the idea that anti-racist programming is somehow harmful or stressful for students,” says Cerda-Smith. “Our study finds that, at least with this program in this school, students are actually benefiting from these programs. What’s more, there is no evidence that the intervention is stressful or has an adverse impact on students’ feelings of belonging in their school community.

“Based on what we learned here, and on our interactions with the educators at this school, this study also underscores the value of partnerships between educators and the research community,” Cerda-Smith says. “We were able to capture real-world data on how students are responding to anti-racist interventions, which expands our understanding of this subject and gives teachers insights into their students. Hopefully, this will encourage more researchers and educators to pursue partnerships like this one.

“This study was particularly valuable for teachers at our partner school, because it took place during the pandemic when classes were being conducted online,” Cerda-Smith says. “Normal social cues that would help teachers determine how students were responding weren’t available, but our assessment gave them insights into students’ experiences with the intervention.”

“Another exciting component of this study was that we were able to capture student experiences in a variety of ways,” says Mulvey. “Many studies rely solely on pre-intervention and post-intervention testing to see what has changed. By having a subset of study participants provide data on a daily basis, we were able to better understand the effects of the intervention in real time. Further, we were able to capture student engagement with the intervention and see how that engagement related to outcomes. Previous work on this subject didn’t capture the role that engagement plays.

“This approach could serve as a model for future work aimed at broadening our understanding of anti-racist interventions, or other interventions in schools — such as interventions that focus on mental health or academic skills,” says Mulvey.

The paper, “A Novel Approach for Evaluating a Schoolwide Antiracist Curriculum Intervention,” is published open access in the journal AERA Open. The paper was co-authored by Paula Yust, an assistant professor of psychology at Dickinson College; Molly Weeks, director of research in Duke University’s Office of Undergraduate Education; and Steven Asher, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University.

The research was supported by a grant from the American Educational Research Association.