The blast, known as SN in GRB 250314A, occurred when the universe was only about 730 million years old. This places it firmly within the era of reionisation, a period when the first stars and galaxies were beginning to emerge. The observation offers a rare and direct view of how massive stars ended their lives during this formative stage of cosmic history.

A Gamma Ray Burst Leads the Way

The discovery was first reported in the academic paper ‘JWST reveals a supernova following a gamma-ray burst at z ≃ 7.3,’ (Astronomy & Astrophysics, 704, December 2025). The event initially drew attention after a powerful flash of high energy radiation, called a long duration Gamma Ray Burst (GRB), was detected on March 14, 2025 by the space based multi band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM). Astronomers then used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO/VLT) to confirm that the source was located at an extreme distance.

JWST Separates the Explosion From Its Host Galaxy

The decisive observations came about 110 days after the burst, when JWST targeted the region using its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCAM). These images allowed researchers to isolate the fading light of the supernova from the much dimmer glow of its host galaxy, a critical step in confirming the nature of the explosion.

Co author and UCD School of Physics astrophysicist Dr. Antonio Martin Carrillo explained the importance of the finding: “The key observation, or smoking gun, that connects the death of massive stars with gamma-ray bursts is the discovery of a supernova emerging at the same sky location. Almost every supernova ever studied has been relatively nearby to us, with just a handful of exceptions to date. When we confirmed the age of this one, we saw a unique opportunity to probe how the Universe was there and what type of stars existed and died back then.

“Using models based on the population of supernovae associated with GRBs in our local universe, we made some predictions of what the emission should be and used it to proposed a new observation with the James Webb Space Telescope. To our surprise, our model worked remarkably well and the observed supernova seems to match really well the death of stars that we see regularly. We were also able to get a glimpse of the galaxy that hosted this dying star.”

An Unexpectedly Familiar Explosion

Measurements show that this distant supernova closely matches the brightness and spectral features of SN 1998bw, a well known supernova linked to a gamma ray burst that exploded much closer to Earth. This resemblance suggests that the star behind GRB 250314A was not dramatically different from massive stars that produce similar explosions in the nearby universe.

Despite forming in an environment with very different conditions, including much lower metallicity, the star appears to have died in a familiar way. The data also rule out a far brighter type of explosion, such as a Superluminous Supernova (SLSN).

Rethinking the First Generations of Stars

These results challenge the long held idea that the earliest stars would produce explosions that were distinctly brighter or bluer than those seen today. Instead, the findings point to a surprising consistency in how massive stars end their lives across cosmic time.

While the discovery provides an important reference point for understanding stellar evolution in the early universe, it also raises new questions about why these explosions appear so uniform.

The team plans to conduct another round of JWST observations within the next one to two years. By then, the supernova should have faded by more than two magnitudes, making it easier to fully study the faint host galaxy and confirm exactly how much light came from the supernova itself.

The findings could eventually help doctors reduce mistakes in diagnosing and treating mental health disorders. Today, many psychiatric conditions are identified through clinical judgment alone and treated using a trial-and-error approach to medication.

The research was published in the journal APL Bioengineering.

Why Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Are Hard to Diagnose

“Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are very hard to diagnose because no particular part of the brain goes off. No specific enzymes are going off like in Parkinson’s, another neurological disease where doctors can diagnose and treat based on dopamine levels even though it still doesn’t have a proper cure,” said Annie Kathuria, a Johns Hopkins University biomedical engineer who led the study. “Our hope is that in the future we can not only confirm a patient is schizophrenic or bipolar from brain organoids, but that we can also start testing drugs on the organoids to find out what drug concentrations might help them get to a healthy state.”

How Scientists Built and Studied Brain Organoids

To conduct the study, Kathuria’s team created brain organoids, which are simplified versions of real human organs. They started by turning blood and skin cells from patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and from healthy individuals into stem cells capable of developing into brain-like tissue.

The team then used machine learning tools to analyze the electrical activity of cells inside these mini brains. In the human brain, neurons communicate by sending brief electrical signals to one another, and the researchers focused on identifying patterns in that activity linked to healthy and unhealthy brain function.

Electrical Biomarkers Identify Mental Illness

The scientists found that specific features of the organoids’ electrical behavior acted as biomarkers for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Using these signals alone, they were able to correctly identify which organoids came from affected patients 83% of the time. When the tissue received gentle electrical stimulation designed to bring out more neural activity, accuracy increased to 92%.

The patterns they uncovered were complex and highly specific. Neurons from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients showed unusual firing spikes and timing changes across multiple electrical measurements, creating a distinct signature for each condition.

“At least molecularly, we can check what goes wrong when we are making these brains in a dish and distinguish between organoids from a healthy person, a schizophrenia patient, or a bipolar patient based on these electrophysiology signatures,” Kathuria said. “We track the electrical signals produced by neurons during development, comparing them to organoids from patients without these mental health disorders.”

Using Microchips to Map Brain Activity

To better understand how neurons formed networks, the researchers placed the organoids on microchips equipped with multi-electrode arrays arranged like a grid. This setup allowed them to collect data in a way similar to a tiny electroencephalogram, or EEG, the test doctors use to measure brain activity in patients.

When fully developed, the organoids reached about three millimeters in diameter. They contained multiple types of neural cells normally found in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, a region involved in higher-level thinking. The mini brains also produced myelin, a substance that insulates nerve cells and helps electrical signals travel more efficiently.

Toward Personalized Psychiatric Treatments

The study included samples from just 12 patients, but Kathuria believes the results point toward meaningful clinical applications. The organoids could eventually serve as a testing platform for psychiatric medications before those drugs are prescribed to patients.

The team is now collaborating with neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists at the John Hopkins School of Medicine. They are collecting additional blood samples from psychiatric patients to study how different drug concentrations affect organoid activity. Even with a limited number of samples, the researchers believe they may be able to suggest medication doses that help restore healthier neural patterns.

“That’s how most doctors give patients these drugs, with a trial-and-error method that may take six or seven months to finds the right drug,” Kathuria said. “Clozapine is the most common drug prescribed for schizophrenia, but about 40% of patients are resistant to it. With our organoids, maybe we won’t have to do that trial-and-error period. Maybe we can give them the right drug sooner than that.”

New research published in Marine Ecology Progress Series points to the importance of mid-sized predators, including the bigscale pomfret, in connecting deep and shallow ocean ecosystems. These fish appear to serve as a crucial link between the surface and the depths. Until recently, scientists lacked detailed information about how bigscale pomfret and similar species move through the ocean, limiting understanding of their ecological role.

To close that gap, researchers turned to satellite-based tracking tags. This technology allowed them to follow the movements of bigscale pomfret over time, something that had been difficult to achieve with deep-sea fish.

Tracking Life in the Twilight Zone

“The data shows bigscale pomfret are permanent residents of the ocean’s twilight zone, and follow the pattern of diel migration. This means they stay deep during the day and come to shallower waters to feed at night,” said Martin Arostegui, lead author of the study and a research associate at WHOI.

Tracking enough of these constantly moving fish posed a challenge. “Since these species spend a majority of their life on the move and in hard-to-reach places, it wouldn’t have been possible for us to tag enough of them during a few days at sea. Thus, we collaborated with a commercial longline fisher, Captain Danny Mears, who did that work as part of our research team.”

Collaboration With Commercial Fishers

Mears and his crew were eager to participate in the project. “Bigscale pomfret are so different from the tunas and swordfish we usually catch that we are fascinated by them whenever they show up in our gear,” Mears said. “My crew and I were excited for the opportunity to help with the satellite tagging for this study. It’s been very rewarding to see the data.”

The study also sheds light on how environmental conditions influence bigscale pomfret behavior. When the fish traveled from the Slope Sea into the clearer waters of the Sargasso Sea, researchers observed noticeable changes in their migration patterns. This suggests that water clarity affects how deep these fish swim, which can alter the prey they hunt and their exposure to predators like large sharks.

Why Mid-Sized Fish Matter More Than We Thought

“We always talk about the mesopelagic layer like it’s this giant buffet for big predators — but we’ve been skipping over the species in the middle,” said WHOI biologist Camrin Braun, the study’s senior author and principal investigator of WHOI’s Marine Predators Group. “These mesopelagic fish are doing the hard work of connecting the deep ocean to the surface food web. If we don’t understand them, we’re basically trying to solve a puzzle with the middle pieces missing.”

Together, the findings highlight how overlooked species in the ocean’s twilight zone play an outsized role in shaping marine food webs and the behavior of some of the ocean’s largest predators.

On the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” characters Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter wrestled with the same idea across three episodes in Season 5. Despite their efforts, the problem remained unsolved in the show.

Now UC physics professor Jure Zupan and his co authors from the Fermi National Laboratory, MIT and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology report a possible solution. Their findings appear in a new study published in the Journal of High Energy Physics.

Why Axions Matter to Dark Matter Research

Axions are theoretical subatomic particles that scientists believe could help explain dark matter. Dark matter is of intense interest because it plays a major role in shaping the universe after the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago.

Although dark matter has never been detected directly, physicists think it makes up most of the matter in the universe. Ordinary matter, including stars, planets and people, accounts for only a small fraction. Dark matter earns its name because it does not absorb or reflect light.

Its presence is inferred through gravity. The unusual motions of galaxies and the stars within them suggest that large amounts of unseen matter are exerting gravitational pull. One leading idea is that dark matter consists of extremely light particles known as axions.

Fusion Reactors as a Source of New Particles

In their study, Zupan and his colleagues examined a fusion reactor design that uses deuterium and tritium fuel inside a lithium lined vessel. This type of reactor is being developed through an international collaboration in southern France.

Such a reactor would generate vast numbers of neutrons along with energy. According to the researchers, those neutrons could also lead to the creation of particles linked to the dark sector.

“Neutrons interact with material in the walls. The resulting nuclear reactions can then create new particles,” he said.

Another possible production route occurs as neutrons collide with other particles and slow down. This process releases energy in a phenomenon known as bremsstrahlung, or “braking radiation.”

Through these mechanisms, the reactor could theoretically produce axions or axion like particles. Zupan noted that this is where the fictional physicists on television came up short.

The Big Bang Theory Easter Egg Explained

“The Big Bang Theory” aired from 2007 to 2019, won seven Emmys and remains one of the most watched shows on streaming platforms, according to Nielsen.

“The general idea from our paper was discussed in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ years ago, but Sheldon and Leonard couldn’t make it work,” Zupan said.

In one episode, a white board displays an equation and diagram that Zupan said represent how axions are produced in the sun. In a later episode, a different equation appears on another board. Under the calculations, drawn in a different marker color, is a clear sad face — a visual sign of failure.

Zupan explained that the equation compares the chances of detecting axions from a fusion reactor with those coming from the sun — and the comparison is not encouraging.

“The sun is a huge object producing a lot of power. The chance of having new particles produced from the sun that would stream to Earth is larger than having them produced in fusion reactors using the same processes as in the Sun. However, one can still produce them in reactors using a different set of processes,” he said.

The show never explicitly mentions axions or explains the white boards. These details serve as inside jokes for scientists, fitting a series known for weaving concepts like Schrodinger’s cat and the Doppler effect into its plots, along with appearances by Nobel Prize winners and “Star Trek” alumni.

“That’s why it’s fantastic to watch as a scientist,” Zupan said. “There are many layers to the jokes.”

In a new study from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), researchers examined how diet-induced obesity and later weight loss affected young adult mice compared with mid-aged mice. In both groups, weight loss successfully restored healthy blood glucose control, showing that key metabolic improvements occur regardless of age. However, the scientists also observed an unexpected difference. In mid-aged mice, weight loss led to increased inflammation in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain involved in regulating appetite, energy use, and other essential functions.

Brain Inflammation Raises New Questions

This increase in brain inflammation was detected at the molecular level and through detailed microscopic imaging of microglia (the brain’s immune cells). The inflammatory response lasted for several weeks before gradually declining. While the long-term effects of this response are still unclear and may even play a role in achieving metabolic improvements, the findings raise important concerns. Persistent or poorly regulated inflammation in the brain has been linked to memory problems and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s. As a result, the study highlights new questions about how weight loss during midlife may interact with brain health.

Researchers Urge a More Nuanced View of Midlife Weight Loss

“Our findings show that losing weight in midlife is not a simple copy-and-paste of what works in young adulthood,” said Alon Zemer, an M.D.-Ph.D. candidate and the first author of this paper. “Weight loss remains essential for restoring metabolic health in obesity, but we need to understand the impact of weight loss on the mid-age brain and ensure brain health is not compromised.”

Dr. Alexandra Tsitrina added: “Our study characterizes the body’s adaptive response to weight loss through two complementary dimensions — molecular and structural. This high-end imaging by advanced microscopy and image analysis with advanced computational analysis enable detection of sensitive changes with potential health ramifications.”

Next Steps for Protecting Brain Health

The research team stresses the importance of additional studies to better understand why this temporary but concerning brain inflammation occurs during midlife weight loss. Future work could help scientists develop approaches that maintain the metabolic advantages of weight loss while also protecting brain health as people age.

The study, titled, “Weight loss aggravates obesity-induced hypothalamic inflammation in mid-aged mice” was published in GeroScience and supported by an internal grant at BGU (with the Ilse Katz Institute of Nanoscale Science and Technology), and grants from theUS-Israel Binational Science Foundation (Grant no. 2021083) and the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 194/24).

The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adds clarity to long-standing debates about vitamin D’s links to colorectal cancer and other diseases. These questions have gained attention due to mixed results from major studies, including the VITAL trial. The new findings also reinforce earlier research from 2013 by the same team, which found that people with low magnesium intake often had low vitamin D levels as well.

New Evidence of a Regulating Effect

Beyond confirming earlier observations, the trial uncovered an additional insight. Magnesium did not simply raise vitamin D across the board. Instead, it appeared to act as a regulator, lowering vitamin D levels in participants whose levels were already high. This is the first clinical evidence suggesting magnesium may help optimize vitamin D levels rather than just increase them, which could be important for reducing disease risk linked to vitamin D imbalance.

Qi Dai, MD, PhD, Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and lead author of the study, explained that the healthiest vitamin D range appears to fall in the middle of a U-shaped curve. Previous observational studies have linked this middle range to the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease.

Vitamin D Research Remains Mixed

Despite earlier findings, vitamin D did not show a clear link to cardiovascular disease in the recent VITAL trial. Dai and co-author Martha Shrubsole, PhD, a research professor of Medicine in the Division of Epidemiology, are now examining whether magnesium could help explain these inconsistent results. Their work is part of the ongoing Personalized Prevention of Colorectal Cancer Trial.

“There’s a lot of information being debated about the relationship between vitamin D and colorectal cancer risk that is based upon observational studies versus clinical trials,” Shrubsole said. “The information is mixed thus far.”

Why Magnesium May Matter More Than Expected

The researchers turned their attention to magnesium after noticing that vitamin D supplements do not work equally well for everyone. Some people fail to raise their vitamin D levels even when taking high doses.

“Magnesium deficiency shuts down the vitamin D synthesis and metabolism pathway,” Dai said.

The study included 250 adults considered at higher risk for colorectal cancer, either due to known risk factors or because they had previously had a precancerous polyp removed. Participants received either magnesium supplements or a placebo, with dosages tailored to their usual dietary intake.

Magnesium Deficiency Is Common in the U.S.

Shrubsole noted that vitamin D insufficiency is widely recognized as a public health concern in the United States, and many patients are advised to take supplements based on blood test results.

“Vitamin D insufficiency is something that has been recognized as a potential health problem on a fairly large scale in the U.S.,” Shrubsole said. “A lot of people have received recommendations from their health care providers to take vitamin D supplements to increase their levels based upon their blood tests. In addition to vitamin D, however, magnesium deficiency is an under-recognized issue. Up to 80 percent of people do not consume enough magnesium in a day to meet the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) based on those national estimates.”

Food Sources of Magnesium

Shrubsole emphasized that magnesium intake in the study matched RDA guidelines and suggested that diet is the best way to increase magnesium levels. Foods rich in magnesium include dark leafy greens, beans, whole grains, dark chocolate, fatty fish such as salmon, nuts and avocados.

Additional Vanderbilt co-authors on the study include Xiangzhu Zhu, MD, Hui Nian, PhD, Harvey Murff, MD, MPH, Reid Ness, MD, MPH, Douglas Seidner, MD and Chang Yu, PhD.

That species is the zombie worm, formally known as “the bone devourer” Osedax. Its disappearance may signal deeper trouble ahead, including species loss and weakening ecosystems linked to long-term climate change.

A Decade-Long Deep-Sea Experiment

Fabio De Leo, a senior staff scientist with Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) and an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Victoria’s (UVic) Department of Biology, co-led a long-term experiment off the coast of British Columbia (BC). The study placed humpback whale bones on the deep ocean floor and monitored them for signs of life.

After years of observation, researchers found no trace of zombie worms, despite their well-known role in breaking down whale bones and supporting deep-sea food webs.

How Zombie Worms Feed Without a Digestive System

Osedax worms are unusual creatures. They lack a mouth, anus, and digestive tract, yet they survive by drilling root-like structures into bone. Inside those roots live microbes that extract nutrients, which then nourish the worms.

Because of this unique role, Osedax is considered an ecosystem engineer, helping recycle nutrients and create conditions that allow other species to move in.

Why the Absence Is So Concerning

Over 10 years of high-resolution underwater camera footage from ONC failed to capture any zombie worm colonization. In scientific terms, this kind of outcome is known as a negative result, and it can be just as meaningful as a positive finding.

“This was a remarkable observation in such a long-term experiment,” De Leo says. He adds that the absence may be linked to unusually low oxygen levels at the study site.

Low Oxygen Zones and Whale Falls

The whale bones were placed in Barkley Canyon, nearly a thousand meters below the Pacific Ocean surface. This area lies within a naturally low-oxygen zone and along migration routes used by humpback and grey whales.

When whales die from natural causes or human-related threats such as ship strikes or fishing net entanglements, their bodies sink to the seafloor. These events create “whale falls,” which normally provide a sudden surge of food that supports rich biodiversity. The lack of zombie worms at Barkley Canyon suggests that expanding oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) in the northeast Pacific and beyond may be disrupting these ecosystems.

Early data from ongoing whale fall research near another ONC NEPTUNE site points to similar concerns elsewhere.

Why Bone Devourers Matter

If the “bone devourer” is missing, the chain reaction can affect many other species. Without Osedax to break down bones and kick-start the ecological succession process, fewer organisms may be able to access nutrients stored in whale remains.

Whale falls are “almost like islands,” De Leo explains, calling them “a stepping-stone habitat for this and many other whale bone specialist species.”

The Risk of Species Loss

“Basically, we’re talking about potential species loss,” De Leo says. Adult Osedax typically live on whale bones, while their larvae travel long distances through ocean currents to colonize new whale falls, sometimes hundreds of kilometers away.

If those habitats disappear or stop functioning properly, connectivity between whale fall sites breaks down. Over time, this could lead to declining diversity of Osedax species across entire regions.

Other Deep-Sea Engineers Also Affected

The research team also found signs that another ecosystem engineer may be under stress. Wood-boring Xylophaga bivalves were present on submerged wood samples at Barkley Canyon, but their colonization rates were far lower than in oxygen-rich waters.

Slower colonization could delay carbon decomposition and reduce habitat formation for the many species that typically live inside Xylophaga burrows.

“It looks like the OMZ expansion, which is a consequence of ocean warming, will be bad news for these amazing whale-fall and wood-fall ecosystems along the northeast Pacific Margin,” said Craig Smith, professor emeritus from University of Hawaii, who co-led the experiment.

How Scientists Collected the Data

De Leo and Smith relied on ONC’s NEPTUNE observatory Barkley Canyon Mid-East video camera platform, along with oceanographic sensors and high-definition video collected by remotely operated vehicles.

Additional findings are expected in the coming months from a whale fall currently being monitored at NEPTUNE’s Clayoquot Slope site.

The research was supported by the Canada Foundation for Innovation Major Science Initiative Fund and partly by a US National Science Foundation grant. It also aligns with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, life below water.

Mapping Hidden Heat Beneath Greenland

The project was carried out at the University of Ottawa in partnership with researchers from the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS). To build their models, the team combined satellite observations with data collected on the ground. They then ran hundreds of thousands of computer simulations using high-performance systems, including resources from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.

The results reveal that heat deep inside the Earth is not evenly distributed beneath Greenland. According to the study’s lead author, these variations are closely tied to Greenland’s geological journey across a powerful volcanic region in the past.

“Our new regional temperature models reveal significant lateral variations in the Earth’s thermal structure beneath Greenland, which provide important information on the island’s passage over the Iceland hotspot,” explains uOttawa’s PhD graduate Parviz Ajourlou, the study’s first author. “These variations help us better interpret Greenland’s tectonic history and the influence of this history on the geophysical properties of the underlying rocks.”

Why Underground Heat Matters for Ice and Land

The temperature of the rocks beneath the ice plays a major role in how the ice sheet behaves today. Warmer conditions at the base can affect how ice slides, how the ground beneath it moves, and how scientists interpret satellite measurements of Earth’s surface.

Glenn Milne, Chair and Full Professor within the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at uOttawa and the study’s principal investigator, highlighted the broader importance of these findings.

“This research advances our understanding of the Earth’s internal structure beneath Greenland. Temperature variations directly influence the interaction between the ice sheet and the bedrock, which must be quantified to interpret observations of land motion and gravity changes. These observations tell us how the ice sheet is responding to recent climate warming.”

Improving Predictions of Future Sea Level Rise

To create their 3D temperature model, the researchers analyzed a wide range of geophysical data, including seismic velocities, gravity anomalies, and heat flow. This comprehensive approach not only provides new insight into Greenland’s geological past but also strengthens scientists’ ability to model how the ice sheet may change in the future.

By better accounting for how heat inside the Earth interacts with ice above it, researchers can improve simulations of ice loss and refine estimates of Greenland’s contribution to global sea level rise.

“This work is a good illustration of how our knowledge of the solid Earth enhances our ability to understand the climate system,” says Ajourlou. “By improving how we model ice-earth interactions, we can better forecast future sea level rise and plan accordingly.”