A salt-loving microorganism from Earth did more than endure a months-long experiment designed around possible conditions beneath Mars. It grew in concentrated brine under low pressure, using nitrate or perchlorate in place of oxygen during respiration. The result extends research on the resilience of Earth microbes. It also raises a question for Mars exploration: Which combinations of harsh conditions can still permit biological activity?

link to open access paper https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aem.01749-26

Conclusion: We have shown that H. volcanii can actively grow under environmental and chemical conditions relevant to the present-day shallow Martian subsurface. However, this study was not designed to replicate the full thermal variability of the Martian surface or shallow subsurface, including diurnal and seasonal freeze–thaw cycles, or the complete suite of chemical conditions presently understood to exist on Mars. Rather, the objective was to determine whether active metabolism is physically possible under Mars-relevant combinations of low atmospheric pressure, high salinity, and oxidizing chemistry, provided that liquid water is available in the form of brines. Moreover, the media used in many previous low-pressure Mars simulation studies, including those employed herein, are supplemented with carbon sources and nutrients that are not representative of the current understanding of biologically available organic compounds on Mars (83).

Our future studies will investigate the capacity of halophilic and psychrophilic microorganisms to grow under conditions that more closely approximate the Amazonian/present-day Martian environment by incorporating freeze–thaw cycles, defined Mars media (94) containing Mars-relevant organic compounds (e.g., acetate) (95), and Mars regolith simulants. Moreover, future experiments would benefit from incorporating additional analytical approaches, including direct cell counts and quantitative biomass measurements, to better characterize population growth and cell-division dynamics under low-pressure conditions. Integrating transcriptomic and proteomic analyses would further enable identification of the molecular pathways involved in hypobaric tolerance, anaerobic metabolism, and adaptation to combined Mars-relevant environmental stressors.

As experimental systems increasingly approximate present-day conditions on Mars, the combined effects of low pressure, low temperature, high salinity, anoxia, radiation, and oxidizing compounds will likely reduce growth yields and metabolic rates. Sensitive, complementary, and agnostic approaches will therefore become increasingly important for detecting and distinguishing subtle biological responses under these more harmful conditions.

The results presented here do not imply that microbial life exists on Mars today. However, they add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the shallow subsurface of Mars may retain environmental conditions capable of supporting active metabolism and extant life (83, 96–98).

Paleontologists regularly discover fossilized dinosaur bones, but they sometimes locate footprints and prehistoric shells. On rare occasions, researchers have even identified the ancient indentations of a dinosaur’s skin or feathers. But fossilized cells? Researchers have long assumed such microscopic levels of preservation were impossible. But, once again, nature has proven otherwise.

In a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), an international team of paleontologists confirmed the presence of intact biomolecules and mineralized red blood cells inside fossils of a 115-million-year-old dinosaur. Although previous work has suggested similar possibilities, the team’s research is the first to chemically identify oxygen-carrying blood compounds known as heme.

“This really is a landmark discovery,” Kliti Grice, a study co-author and chemist at Curtin University in Australia, said in a statement. “These findings challenge longstanding assumptions that certain biomolecules such as hemoglobin cannot survive deep time.”

The evidence exists inside the fossilized limb bones of a juvenile Aratasaurus museunacionali. Discovered in 2008, A. museunacionali was an Early Cretaceous theropod that lived in present-day northeastern Brazil. The fossils suggest a dinosaur measuring over 10 feet long and weighing about 75 pounds, but given its young age, A. museunacionali likely grew even larger.

After carefully examining thin slices of the fossils, paleontologists located the mineralized red blood cell molecular components, along with a complex manganese oxide called hausmannite. This material helped maintain the cellular structures of heme, a ring-shaped molecule that contains iron and binds many proteins, especially hemoglobin. The hausmannite also helped preserve additional biomolecules found in the blood, such as the amino acids in collagen. The study’s authors theorize this level of preservation could only occur following a rapid burial in an environment that was rich in microbes, but low in oxygen at the same time.

Early Sunday morning, volunteer comet hunter Jiangao Ruan filed a candidate report at 9:04 a.m. UTC flagging a new Kreutz-group sungrazer in data captured by CCOR-1, the solar coronagraph aboard NOAA's GOES-19 weather satellite. Fellow citizen scientist Zesheng Yang co-signed the submission the same morning. The candidate now awaits confirmation from staff at the Naval Research Laboratory — the latest in a sequence that has quietly made a weather-monitoring coronagraph into the world's most productive sungrazing-comet finder, staffed almost entirely by people who do this for free.

...What they found was that within milliseconds after the two stars make contact, the neutron fluid within the region enters a Kelvin–Helmholtz instability. This is a physics way of saying the fluid becomes turbulent. You've likely seen such an instability before. If you gently blow out a candle, there is a smooth stream of smoke that rises off the wick. But as it rises, the stream becomes swirly and random. That transition is where it reaches the instability.

The thing about Kelvin–Helmholtz instability is that it can mix things up tremendously. In the simulations, this mixes the neutron material so fully and quickly that the magnetic field is amplified significantly. This mixing trickles through the rest of the material, dragging the magnetic field with it. As a result, the magnetic field of the merged neutron star can be more than 300 times stronger than the initial magnetic fields...

..."We initially set out to show that such a protocol might be impossible. To our surprise, our efforts led us to a quantum solution that could achieve exactly the deterministic energy transfer we were looking for. The shift from trying to prove a limitation to uncovering a viable solution was one of the most surprising and rewarding moments of the project," said Dahlsten...

Endangered Lantau toads show genetic and call differences that could signal an emerging species

The short-legged horned toad, an endangered species in Hong Kong, is a small frog measuring around 40 mm in length. It is characterised by short hind limbs, small horn-like projections above the eyes, and skin coloration and patterns that closely resemble dead leaves. (The photo shows the Short-legged Horned Toad population on Lantau Island.) Credit: Lingnan University

The short-legged horned toad (Boulenophrys brachykolos), listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, is the only known small frog species in Hong Kong belonging to the genus Boulenophrys of the family Megophryidae.

A study led by the Division of Science at Lingnan University has found that the Lantau Island population of the short-legged horned toad shows clear genetic divergence from other local populations, along with several notable differences in the mating calls of males.

The research team suggests that the Lantau population represents an early stage of speciation. Geographic isolation of Lantau Island from other landmasses likely contributed to these unique evolutionary traits. The team recommends treating the Lantau population as a separate conservation unit in the future.

These findings have been published in the journal Current Herpetology.

Distinct genes and faster mating calls

The short-legged horned toad is found in mountain streams on Lantau Island, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories and adjacent Shenzhen. The research team, led by Lingnan University, collected 19 samples of the short-legged horned toad (nine from Lantau Island, six from Hong Kong Island and four from Kowloon) to examine their genetic and morphological characteristics.

The study shows that Short-legged Horned Toads are visually almost identical, making evolutionary differences difficult to detect through traditional field surveys alone. (The photo shows the Short-legged Horned Toad population on Hong Kong Island.). Credit: Lingnan University

The results show that the short-legged horned toads on Lantau form a distinct genetic group separate from those on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and Shenzhen. This suggests that the Lantau population has been separated from other populations for a considerable period.

In addition, the team recorded and analyzed the mating calls of male short-legged horned toads from Lantau Island, Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. They found significant differences between the calls of the Lantau Island population and those of other local populations. The Lantau population produces calls with a faster rhythm and shorter individual notes.

Similar appearance masks evolutionary differences

In terms of physical appearance, the team found no marked differences between frogs from Lantau Island and other regions, indicating that physical characteristics alone may be insufficient to distinguish the Lantau population from other populations.

Jonathan Fong, the corresponding author of the study, associate dean (administration and education) of the Wu Jieh Yee School of Interdisciplinary Studies and associate professor of the Division of Science at Lingnan University, said the study provides a more comprehensive approach to evaluating evolutionary divergence among populations of the same species.

He said, "Many amphibians look very similar, making evolutionary differences difficult to detect through traditional methods that examine morphology alone. By integrating genetic and acoustic data, we found that frogs on Lantau Island have a distinct genetic makeup and male toads have different mating calls. This suggests that the Lantau population is following a distinct evolutionary trajectory."

Isolation strengthens the case for separate conservation

Sung Yik-hei, the first author of the study and adjunct assistant professor of the Division of Science at Lingnan University, explained that Lantau Island became geographically isolated from the mainland approximately 10,000 years ago. The geographic isolation likely reduced gene flow between populations, allowing the Lantau short-legged horned toad population to develop unique genetic traits over time. The study also highlights that Hong Kong may harbor undiscovered biodiversity.

Sung said, "The results suggest that the short-legged horned toad population on Lantau Island may represent an early stage of speciation, although current evidence is insufficient to determine whether the Lantau population constitutes a distinct species. The short-legged horned toad is an endangered species, and if the Lantau population declines or becomes extinct, its unique genetic traits could be lost and could not be replaced by populations from other areas.

"We therefore propose that conservation management recognize the Lantau population as an independent conservation unit, giving due consideration to its specific conservation needs to ensure the survival of this unique native population."

...Flavor transitions—when one type of quark turns into another—can only take place via the weak interaction, one of the four fundamental forces. Quantum physics describes how other particles, not directly involved in a particular transition, can influence how that transition takes place. If a process happens differently than is predicted by the influence of the particles we know about, which make up the Standard Model, this difference could point to the existence of as-yet-undiscovered particles and interactions.

Some of these transitions are extremely rare, which makes them very sensitive to any potential contributions from particles that may exist beyond the Standard Model. The b→sμ⁺μ⁻ transition is one such process, only occurring approximately once in every 10 million decays of particles containing beauty quarks, known as beauty particles. Over the past decade, signs have begun to appear that this transition may not occur as expected...

370 billion crickets are farmed for food every year. Scientists have discovered they may feel pain

House Cricket (Acheta domesticus). Credit: mani_raab/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC

You're cooking dinner, distracted, and your hand brushes a hot pan. Nerve signals race to your spinal cord and back to yank your arm away in a fraction of a second, with no thought required.

Then comes the pain. A sharp, spreading sting gives way to a pulsing ache, and you cradle your hand and run it under cold water until it subsides. That felt experience is distinct from the reflex that preceded it. While the reflex moved your body out of danger, pain drives you to protect the wound, recover, and learn to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

We readily accept that other people feel pain by reading cues in their behavior, like the inspection and nursing of an injury. We extend this to some animals too—a dog licking its paw or a cat favoring a limb rightly stir our sympathies. But what happens when we turn that lens on animals far less like us?

In our new study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, we searched for behavioral signs of pain in house crickets, one of the most widely farmed insects. After applying heat to an antenna, we found that crickets didn't just reflexively flinch and recover. They nursed the harm, returning again and again to groom the affected site, much as we rub a burned hand.

The frontiers of feeling

French philosopher René Descartes considered animals unfeeling biological machines, and for centuries the circle of moral concern barely extended beyond our own species.

But the boundaries have steadily crept outward. Recognition that mammals experience pain came first, followed by birds. Fish too, once assumed to lack the necessary brain structures, are now widely accepted as capable of pain-like states.

The leap into invertebrates has been greater and more contentious. Their nervous systems bear little resemblance to our own, so arguments from brain anatomy alone don't carry us far. Instead, we look to behavior. Does the animal respond to harm in ways that go beyond reflex, ways that are flexible, persistent, and sensitive to context?

Over the past decade, testable indicators for pain in non-humans have been developed and are increasingly accepted. These include learning from unpleasant events, trading off harms against rewards, and actively protecting the site of injury. Evidence meeting these criteria helped crabs and lobsters gain legal recognition as sentient under United Kingdom law in 2022.

Among insects, the evidence has been accumulating fast. Yet most of this evidence comes from bees. Bumblebees weigh the risk of harm against the richness of a food reward, and groom the site of an injury. Honeybees learn to associate particular smells with harmful stimuli and avoid them.

Far less attention has been paid to Orthoptera, the group that includes grasshoppers, locusts and crickets. That gap matters, because the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) is the world's most widely farmed insect, with more than 370 billion reared annually.

Do crickets feel pain?

We tested 40 male and 40 female crickets, each experiencing three conditions in random order: a hot probe to a single antenna (65°C, to activate damage receptors but not cause lasting injury), the same probe unheated, or no contact at all.

We filmed their behavior for ten minutes. Observers scoring the footage did not know which treatment any animal had received.

The results were clear. After the hot probe, crickets were more than twice as likely to groom the affected antenna compared to controls, and spent roughly four times longer doing so.

Could this simply reflect general disturbance rather than targeted care? Unlikely: grooming was directed specifically at the heated side, not spread evenly across both antennae as it was after gentle touch or no contact.

And the behavior wasn't a brief, reflexive reaction. It was elevated from the outset and tapered gradually over minutes, much like rubbing a burned hand as the felt sting slowly fades.

Small minds, big feelings

Subjective experience cannot be directly observed in any animal, not even humans.

But we have shown crickets respond to harm in a way that satisfies a key criterion many scientists and philosophers use to infer pain: flexible, directed self-protection. Combined with the knowledge that crickets possess damage receptors, can learn to avoid harms, and respond less to injury under morphine, the weight of evidence for an inner life is growing.

The practical stakes are real. Hundreds of billions of farmed insects are slaughtered each year by freezing, boiling and baking. Pesticides kill trillions more, optimized for lethality with no consideration of potential suffering.

If we take a precautionary approach, credible evidence of suffering should motivate proportionate protections well before we are certain.

Insects have been around for more than 400 million years and are far more behaviorally and cognitively sophisticated than once assumed. The question, then, may not be whether some insects feel, but why we ever assumed they couldn't.

Banner image: The short-eared dog inhabits the Amazon and prefers untouched forests. Image courtesy of Guido Ayala & María Viscarra/WCS Bolivia.

Study gathers over 4,000 photos to find Bolivia’s rarest Amazonian dog

• A study conducted for more than 20 years with camera-trap surveys in different parts of the Bolivian Amazon has recorded 594 independent events for the short-eared dog in more than 4,600 images.
• This species, popularly known in Bolivia as the ghost dog, is one of the least-known canids in the world. Its survival depends highly on the quality of its natural habitat, according to experts.
• In the Bolivian forests, it can generally be found in protected areas or Indigenous territories, which scientists say underscores the importance of these kinds of areas for biodiversity conservation.

It has a fox-like snout, webbed toes and a thick tail. It’s called the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis), but also the ghost dog (perro fantasma in Spanish) in Bolivia, and the Amazonian dog. It’s one of the world’s least-known canids and one of the least frequently sighted carnivores in Latin America.

Now, though, a study conducted over the course of more than two decades — from 2001 to 2024 — in Bolivia has revealed more than 4,600 camera-trap images that show how it lives, the places it inhabits, and why this species is so dependent on South America’s forests remaining intact to survive.

The research underscores that the ghost dog is very much an Amazonian species, and in particular a forest one. In Bolivia, it can be spotted in the country’s continuous Amazonian forests, in the northern portion of the department of La Paz, but also in the department of Pando, in northern and northeastern Beni, and in the far north and northeast of Santa Cruz.

It’s also found in the pre-Amazonian forests of the Andes mountain range, also called piedmont forests, at elevations up to 750 meters (2,460 feet).

Robert Wallace, a British biologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Bolivia and a co-author of the new study, said the team conducted a systematic review of published and unpublished distribution records of the species in Bolivia. Throughout the 23 years, they also carried out 34 intensive camera-trap surveys in the lowland areas of the Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape (in northwest Bolivia) and the Llanos de Moxos Biocultural Landscape (northern Bolivia).

Popularly called the “ghost dog” (perro fantasma) in Bolivia, Atelocynus microtis is one of the world’s least-known canid species. Image courtesy of Guido Ayala & María Viscarra/WCS Bolivia.

Wallace said the short-eared dog is native to the Amazonian forests, not the Amazonian grasslands. “Our [collected] data shows that what it seeks the most is the forest itself, as it avoids transitional habitats leading to more open areas. It is a forest species,” he said.

He added that the use of hidden technology, such as camera traps, makes the mysterious dog not as hard to find as people think. Even so, Wallace said, it’s still challenging to witness the species directly: this canid is quite skittish and has a highly developed sense of smell, which allows it to avoid encounters with humans and natural predators.

video from a camera trap

“The short-eared dog is primarily diurnal, but also crepuscular, meaning it’s quite active around dawn and dusk. It can be active at night, but the vast majority of camera-trap sightings occurred during the day,” Wallace said.

He added the species’ preferred biome type is the lowland forest, “not right next to the river, but in the mature forest, further inland.”

A two-decade-long initiative

The study was backed by WCS Bolivia and included a lot of camera trapping, done every year during the dry season.

This method revealed an animal with a relatively low-slung body, short legs, small and rounded ears, a large head, and dense, dark fur ranging from blackish-gray to reddish-brown, with a dark dorsal stripe and a long bushy tail that usually drags on the ground. Its feet are partially webbed, meaning the toes are connected by a membrane — a unique trait among Amazonian canids.

The camera-trap surveys yielded a combined 4,635 photos covering 594 separate events featuring the short-eared dog.

“Camera-trap surveys provided significant information on the behavior and relative abundance of the short-eared dog, suggesting that it is more abundant than previously believed, although it remains a relatively rare medium-sized carnivore,” Wallace said.

He said it’s encouraging that the short-eared dog’s relative abundance was higher in protected areas and Indigenous territories that overlap with protected areas, emphasizing that this reinforces the importance of these kinds of areas for biodiversity conservation.

A short-eared dog approaches a veterinarian in the Bolivian Amazon. Image courtesy of Renata Leite Pitman.

“These results have important implications for conservation, as they suggest that large tracts of continuous forest, comparable in size to larger protected areas, will be necessary to uphold viable long-term populations of short-eared dogs,” Wallace said.

According to the Bolivian environmental NGO ORÉ, six species of canids are known in Bolivia, including the short-eared dog, also known in the Amazon lowlands as the bush dog (perro de monte in Spanish). ORÉ noted that the species shouldn’t be confused with the more common bush dog ( Speothos venaticus ) or the black-footed fox (Cerdocyon thous).

ORÉ collaborated on a 2024 related study with the Noel Kempff Mercado Natural History Museum, located in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the largest city in Bolivia. The organization told Mongabay that the short-eared dog is the only species in its genus and is a solitary carnivore. It measures 70-100 centimeters (28-39 inches) in length, stands 35 cm (14 in) tall, and has a bushy black tail — except at the base — that’s long enough to touch the ground.

The short-eared dog’s survival depends on forest quality. Image courtesy of Renata Leite Pitman.

The short-eared dog’s characteristics

The dog’s head is large and more brownish than its grayish back. Its snout has a distinct black line running from the nose to the area below the eyes. The ears are small, hence the name, but emerge above the crown of the head. They’re rounded and light brown, contrasting with the head’s tone. The dog can weigh between 9 and 10 kilograms (20-22 pounds), with the females up to 30% larger than the males. The species’ diet is believed to consist of amphibians, fish and reptiles, although it also eats fruit.

Marco Greminger, a veterinary zootechnician and professor at the Autonomous University of Beni in Bolivia, told Mongabay that a ghost dog was once captured alive near the university. He said the animal was found hidden in a disused ground-level air duct.

“It was incredible how we managed to capture that ghost dog alive. They called me to help, and I did it. The [short-eared] dog came into the kennel; it was really weak. I remember giving him 350 grams [12 ounces] of chicken liver — which is rich in folic acid — chicken feet, and an oral rehydration solution. He ate all 10 pieces I gave him,” Greminger said.

He added the animal has a strong odor. “It’s stronger than that of a porcupine or a fox; it’s more sour,” he said.

The short-eared dog prefers upland forests, living far from the riverside. Image courtesy of Renata Leite Pitman.

Veterinarian and ecologist Renata Leite Pitman, a researcher at Duke University in the U.S., has studied short-eared dogs for 14 years, calling them “very elusive and hard to spot.” In that time, she’s located just five of them in the wild, in the Amazon Basin, her place of fieldwork, and fitted them with tracking collars to study their habits. “They are very shy, totally different from pets,” she said.

In 2023, Pitman was contacted by Greminger, who was seeking advice after finding the dog in the air duct. “I shared what I had been feeding it. We agreed and coordinated a few steps. She recommended papaya; I had been giving guava,” Greminger said.

This story was first published here in Spanish on May 6, 2026.

...The new research finding shows that the human brain consists of two ancient nervous systems cleverly packaged together — a more primitive part that regulates our hearts’ beating, our breathing and other functions, and another that makes us distinctly human, capable of poetry, mathematics and wondering about our own origins.

The discovery could help explain why scientists have struggled for decades to grow certain types of brain cells in the laboratory — and it opens new avenues for studying devastating diseases that affect the brain stem, such as spinal muscular atrophy (also known as SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease).

“We’ve shown for the first time that the front of the brain arises from a totally different progenitor cell than the back of the brain,” said Kyle Loh, PhD, associate professor of developmental biology. “Our discovery means that we can now grow neurons from the back of the brain, the hindbrain, in a petri dish and study their functions.”...