With its exquisite sensitivity, Webb captured Uranus’ dim inner and outer rings, including the elusive Zeta ring — the extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet. It also imaged many of the planet’s 27 known moons, even seeing some small moons within the rings.

In visible wavelengths as seen by Voyager 2 in the 1980s, Uranus appeared as a placid, solid blue ball. In infrared wavelengths, Webb is revealing a strange and dynamic ice world filled with exciting atmospheric features.

One of the most striking of these is the planet’s seasonal north polar cloud cap. Compared to the Webb image from earlier this year, some details of the cap are easier to see in these newer images. These include the bright, white, inner cap and the dark lane in the bottom of the polar cap, toward the lower latitudes.

Several bright storms can also be seen near and below the southern border of the polar cap. The number of these storms, and how frequently and where they appear in Uranus’s atmosphere, might be due to a combination of seasonal and meteorological effects.

The polar cap appears to become more prominent when the planet’s pole begins to point toward the Sun, as it approaches solstice and receives more sunlight. Uranus reaches its next solstice in 2028, and astronomers are eager to watch any possible changes in the structure of these features. Webb will help disentangle the seasonal and meteorological effects that influence Uranus’s storms, which is critical to help astronomers understand the planet’s complex atmosphere.

Because Uranus spins on its side at a tilt of about 98 degrees, it has the most extreme seasons in the solar system. For nearly a quarter of each Uranian year, the Sun shines over one pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a dark, 21-year-long winter.

With Webb’s unparalleled infrared resolution and sensitivity, astronomers now see Uranus and its unique features with groundbreaking new clarity. These details, especially of the close-in Zeta ring, will be invaluable to planning any future missions to Uranus.

Uranus can also serve as a proxy for studying the nearly 2,000 similarly sized exoplanets that have been discovered in the last few decades. This “exoplanet in our backyard” can help astronomers understand how planets of this size work, what their meteorology is like, and how they formed. This can in turn help us understand our own solar system as a whole by placing it in a larger context.

These new findings underscore the urgency of addressing adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) — potentially traumatic events that occur before 18 years of age — and taking steps to mitigate their long-term impact on people’s health.

The study reviews research carried out across 75 years, involving 826,452 adults. Published in the peer-reviewed journal European Journal of Psychotraumatology, it reveals that individuals who have been exposed to various forms of traumatic events in childhood are at an increased risk of experiencing chronic pain and pain-related disability in adulthood, particularly those subjected to physical abuse. The cumulative impact of exposure to multiple ACEs further exacerbates this risk.

“These results are extremely concerning, particularly as over 1 billion children — half of the global child population — are exposed to ACEs each year, putting them at increased risk of chronic pain and disability later in life,” says lead author Dr André Bussières, from the School of Physical & Occupational Therapy at McGill University, in Canada.

“There is an urgent need to develop targeted interventions and support systems to break the cycle of adversity and improve long-term health outcomes for those individuals who have been exposed to childhood trauma.”

ACEs may affect a child or teenager directly through physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect — or indirectly through exposure to environmental factors like domestic violence, living with substance abuse or parental loss. Chronic pain, affecting between one-third and one-half of the UK population alone, is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. Long-term painful conditions such as low back pain, arthritis, headache and migraine, can affect a person’s daily functioning to the point they can’t work, eat properly, or participate in physical activities.

Previous research has indicated a positive relationship between exposure to ACEs and chronic pain in adulthood. However, there are still gaps in knowledge — particularly around which type of ACEs are associated with specific pain-related conditions, or whether a dose-response relationship exists.

To help address these gaps, the authors carried out a systematic review that included 85 studies. Of those, results from 57 studies could be pooled in meta-analyses. They found that:

• Individuals exposed to a direct ACE, whether physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or neglect, were 45% more likely to report chronic pain in adulthood compared to those not exposed.

“These results underscore the urgency of addressing ACES, particularly in light of their prevalence and health repercussions,” says the senior author Professor Jan Hartvigsen, from the University of Southern Denmark.

“A more nuanced understanding of the precise relationship between ACEs and chronic pain will empower healthcare professionals and policymakers to devise targeted strategies to help diminish the long-term impact of early-life adversity on adult health.”

The authors propose that future research should delve into the biological mechanisms through which ACEs affect health across the lifespan, aiming to deepen understanding and develop ways to mitigate their impact.

In Greek, apnea (ἄπνοια) denotes the “absence of breathing.” Hence, obstructive sleep apnea is a disease defined by interruptions in breathing, which recurs while the person suffering from it is asleep. A feeling of breathlessness, fatigue and drowsiness are symptoms that patients suffer. This disease is also related to the incidence of cardiovascular disorders, so to deal with these related problems, adequate diagnosis of the severity of the disease is necessary.

Alterations in the metabolism of people with sleep apnea are key to determining the severity of the disease. These changes are usually analyzed in blood or urine. However, in search of a less invasive and more accessible alternative, a team from the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Córdoba and the Maimonides Institute for Biomedical Research in Córdoba (IMIBIC), formed by researchers Laura Castillo, Mónica Calderón, Feliciano Priego and Bernabé Jurado, has verified, for the first time, the potential of sweat samples to ascertain the severity of sleep apnea.

“By analyzing sweat metabolome and its alterations, mainly at night, we were able to see what stage of the disease the patients were in,” explains Laura Castillo, the study’s lead author. For her, the advantages of using sweat over other samples are clear: “it is a non-invasive and clean sample since, unlike the case with blood, we don’t have to remove proteins, and it’s much easier to analyze and detect metabolites.”

In this study, sweat samples from before and after sleep were analyzed from a series of individuals with sleep apnea at different stages, as well as from a control group without the disease.

In these samples, using the gas chromatography technique, coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry, 78 metabolites were identified and their changes were studied, mostly related to energy production and oxidative stress. “We could see how the sweat metabolism itself indicates those alterations during sleep as a result of which the person’s energy production worsens and their oxidative stress increases,” says Castillo. Thus, with a personalized follow-up using the sweat excreted during the sleep of a person with the disease, its development can be tracked, and its possible effects, such as cardiovascular problems, can be monitored. This metabolomic profile also made it possible, in the trial, to distinguish between those who suffered from the disease and those who did not have it and belonged to the control group.

An index to learn more about the disease

In addition to establishing sweat as a good sentinel when it comes to determining the stage of the disease, this work also reveals the importance of taking into account the oxygen desaturation index when diagnosing it.

The diagnosis of sleep apnea is currently based on the Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI), which measures sleep apnea based on the episodes of shortness of breath one suffers per hour (for example, the disease is severe when one has 30 or more episodes per hour). According to the team, this index “does not provide all the information about the disease or the patient’s situation at a given time” since it counts how many events there are, but not their severity.

Therefore, in their study they also verify the importance of using the oxygen desaturation index, which shows how serious the episodes are by measuring the number of events in which oxygen saturation has decreased by more than 3%. After verifying the linear relationship between this index and the AHI, its validity has been confirmed, since, in addition to the data provided by the AHI, it also measures severity, taking into account oxygen saturation loss.

Details of their breakthrough were published in the journal Acta Materialia on November 17, 2024.

Hydrogen is carbon dioxide free, and it has long been touted as a source of clean energy. Yet, shifting society towards a hydrogen energy-based one requires overcoming some significant technical issues. Structural and functional materials that produce, store, transport and preserve hydrogen are needed.

To develop advanced materials for hydrogen-related applications, a fundamental understanding of how hydrogen behaves in alloys is crucial. However, current technology falls short in this area. Detecting atomic state hydrogen — the smallest atom in the universe — with X-rays or lasers is challenging due to its unique characteristics. Researchers are currently focusing on better analytical and visualization techniques that can incorporate high spatial and time resolutions simultaneously.

Hiroshi Kakinuma, an assistant professor at Tohoku University, and his co-authors developed a new visualization technique harnessing an optical microscope and polyaniline layer. “When the color of the polyaniline layer reacts with the atomic state hydrogen in metals, it changes colors, allowing us to analyze the flow of hydrogen atoms based on the color distribution of the polyaniline layer,” points out Kakinuma. “Additionally, optical microscopes can observe the sub-millimeter-scale view with microscale spatial resolution in real time, thereby capturing hydrogen behavior with unprecedented high spatial and time resolutions.”

Thanks to this method, the researchers successfully filmed the flow of hydrogen atoms in pure nickel (Ni). The color of polyaniline changed from purple to white when reacting with hydrogen atoms in a metal. In situ visualization revealed that hydrogen atoms in pure Ni preferentially diffused through grain boundaries in disordered Ni atoms.

Furthermore, the group found that hydrogen diffusion was dependent on the geometrical structure of the grain boundaries: the hydrogen flux grew at grain boundaries with large geometric spaces. These results experimentally clarified the relationship between the atomic-scale structure of pure Ni and the hydrogen diffusion behavior.

The approach has broader applications as well. It can be applied to other metals and alloys, such as steels and aluminum alloys, and drastically facilitates elucidating the microscopic hydrogen-material interactions, which could be further investigated through simulations.

“Understanding hydrogen behaviors related to the atomic-scale structure of alloys will enable efficient alloy design, which will dramatically accelerate the development of highly functional materials and usher us one step closer to a hydrogen energy-based society,” adds Kakinuma.

Our ability to process verbal language is not based solely on semantics, i.e. the meaning and combination of linguistic units. Other parameters come into play, such as prosody, which includes pauses, accentuation and intonation. Affective bursts — ”Aaaah!” or ”Oh!” for example — are also part of this, and we share these with our primate cousins. They contribute to the meaning and understanding of our vocal communications.

When such a vocal message is emitted, these sounds are processed by the frontal and orbitofrontal regions of our brain. The function of these two areas is, among other things, to integrate sensory and contextual information leading to a decision. Are they activated in the same way when we are exposed to the emotional vocalisations of our close cousins the chimpanzees, macaques and bonobos? Are we able to differentiate between them?

MRI scans with headphones on

A UNIGE team sought to find out by exposing a group of 25 volunteers to various human and simian vocalisations. ”The participants were placed in an MRI scanner and were given headphones. After a short period of familiarisation with the different types of vocalisations, each participant had to categorise them, i.e. identify to which species they belonged,” explains Leonardo Ceravolo, senior lecturer at the UNIGE’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, and first author of the study.

These vocalisations were of the affiliative type, i.e. linked to a positive interaction, or of the agonistic type, i.e. linked to a threat or distress. The human vocalisations came from databases recorded by actors. The simian ones came from field recordings made as part of previous research. This study is the first of its kind to include bonobo vocalisations.

Bonobos, not so close cousins

The results show that for macaque and chimpanzee vocalisations, the frontal and orbitofrontal regions of the participants were activated in a similar way to human vocalisations. The participants were able to differentiate between them easily. On the other hand, when confronted with the ”sounds” of bonobos, also close cousins of humans, the involved cerebral areas were much less activated, and categorisation was at chance level.

”It was thought that kinship between species — the ‘phylogenetic distance’ — was the main parameter for having the ability, or not, to recognise these different vocalisations. We thought that the closer we were genetically, the more important this ability was,” explains Didier Grandjean, full professor at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences and at the UNIGE’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, who led the study. ”Our results show that a second parameter comes into play: acoustic distance. The further the dynamics of the acoustic parameters, such as the frequencies used, are from those of humans, the less certain frontal regions are activated. We then lose the ability to recognise these sounds, even if they are emitted by a close cousin, in this case the bonobo.”

Bonobo calls are very high-pitched and can sound like those of certain birds. This acoustic distance in terms of frequencies, compared with human vocalisations, explains our inability to decode them, despite our close phylogenetic proximity. ”Are we capable of identifying the different emotional aspects of affiliative or agonistic vocalisations emitted by a chimpanzee, a macaque or a bonobo? And if so, how? Thiese questions will be at the heart of our next research, which will involve analysing not our ability to categorise vocalisations by species but to identify their emotional content,” concludes Didier Grandjean.

Now, researchers say they’ve solved the mystery. Using CT scanning technology, Steven Manchester, curator of paleobotany at the Florida Museum of Natural History, created 3D reconstructions of the original fossil specimens and others collected since. He showed these to a colleague, who noticed something odd about the five triangular seeds inside.

“When I showed him the 3D images, he said “those aren’t seeds. Those are pyrenes,” Manchester recalled of his conversation with courtesy curator of botany at the Florida Museum, Walter Judd.

Pyrenes are woody dispersal pods that give seeds an extra layer of protection. Examples include the hard stones at the cores of cherries, peaches, dates and pistachios, which prevent the seeds from being digested along with the rest of the fruit.

Distinguishing a seed from a pyrene, especially when they’re the size of snowflakes, requires close scrutiny. Traditional methods of paleobotany, which involve incrementally dissolving fossils in acid and observing each new layer under a microscope, had proven insufficient.

“If we had specimens that fractured at just the right plane, I would have been able to recognize them, but with the material we had on hand, I couldn’t tell,” Manchester said.

There are only a few plant groups that produce pyrenes, fewer still with fruits that contain five seeds arranged in a pentagram. Through a process of elimination, Manchester and Judd determined the fossils belonged to an extinct species in Burseraceae, the Frankincense family.

Fossilized wood, leaves, fruits and flowers from this family have been found elsewhere in India, often sandwiched between thick slabs of basalt created by one of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth’s history.

At the time, India was an island off the southeast coast of Africa. India’s continental plate was slowly inching toward Europe and Asia, and as it rafted past Madagascar, it broke the seal on a thin layer of Earth’s crust. Rivers of liquid rock poured onto a landscape the size of California and Texas combined. The eruptions occurred intermittently for nearly a million years, and they repeatedly killed any vegetation that grew during the interludes.

“The fossils were preserved at times of quiet between the eruptions,” Manchester said. “Ponds and lakes formed on the relatively fresh lava flows, and vegetation, including wood and seeds, were washed into them and covered by sediment.”

The shield volcano responsible for the destruction was active just before and after the asteroid impact that drew the curtains on the Cretaceous, and both are thought to have contributed to the extinctions that followed.

Most fossils from the Frankincense family have, up until now, been recovered from rocks that postdate the asteroid impact. The original fruits discovered in the 1970s were fossilized before that event. This makes them the oldest Burseraceae fossils discovered to date, which has important implications for the family’s origin. Scientists have a good idea of when plants in the group initially evolved, but it’s still unclear where they came from.

Ancient species of Burseraceae are a common component of fossil beds in southern England, the Czech Republic and parts of North America. Beginning roughly 50 million years ago, however, Earth’s climate began a long cooling process that ultimately resulted in the most recent Ice Ages. As temperatures fell, species in the Frankincense family seemed to reverse their preference for hemispheres. Today, there are more than 700 Burseraceae species, and most of them grow south of the equator.

The ancestors of modern Burseraceae species are thought to have first appeared somewhere in the north. Alternatively, a few early species may have had a global distribution but became isolated as continents drifted apart.

The fossils from India suggest the southern hemisphere may have been the real birthplace of the family.

“It could be that we just don’t have rocks of the right age in Europe to indicate that they were there, but this shows that we can’t dismiss the southern hemisphere as a point of origin,” Manchester said.