Jingszo !

Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) represents one of the most analyzed yet cryptic works in art history. While the drawing's symbolic significance as representing ideal human proportions has been extensively documented, the precise geometric system Leonardo used to establish the relationship between the circumscribing circle and square has remained mysteriously elusive for over five centuries.

The challenge originates from Vitruvius himself, who proposed in ‘De Architectura’ that the perfectly proportioned human figure could be inscribed within both a circle and a square, but provided no mathematical framework for achieving this geometric relationship. As Murtinho (Citation2015) documents, ‘nowhere in the Vitruvian treaty is there a clarification of the proportional system that establishes the relational factor between the square and the circle. This situation has led to immense geometric and symbolic speculation in terms of the search for and definition of the rules that will have guided Leonardo to the drawing of his Vitruvian man.’

This geometric question has attracted scholarly investigation for centuries because Leonardo achieved what Vitruvius only proposed – a precise mathematical relationship that successfully inscribes the human figure within both geometric forms. Understanding Leonardo's construction method has implications beyond art history, potentially revealing sophisticated mathematical and anatomical insights embedded within Renaissance artistic practice.

We cannot, of course, go back and sniff to find out. But the literary texts, physical remains of structures, objects, and environmental evidence (such as plants and animals) can offer clues.

So what might ancient Rome have smelled like?

Honestly, often pretty rank

In describing the smells of plants, author and naturalist Pliny the Elder uses words such as iucundus (agreeable), acutus (pungent), vis (strong), or dilutus (weak).

None of that language is particularly evocative in its power to transport us back in time, unfortunately.

But we can probably safely assume that, in many areas, Rome was likely pretty dirty and rank-smelling. Property owners did not commonly connect their toilets to the sewers in large Roman towns and cities – perhaps fearing rodent incursions or odours.

The object in question is currently at +18th magnitude, moving slowly along the border of the constellations Serpens Cauda and Sagittarius, right near the galactic plane. The object was captured on July 2nd by the Deep Random Survey remote telescope in Chile. The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) based in Rio Hurtado made the discovery on July 1st. Sam Deen soon backed this up with pre-discovery images from worldwide ATLAS sites in Chile, Hawaii and South Africa from June 25-29.

This allowed astronomers to plot a preliminary orbit. That’s where things get really interesting: the object has an eccentricity now estimated near 6.0—the highest seen yet. An eccentricity of 1.0 or lower is a closed orbit, signifying an asteroid or comet on an elliptical orbit in our solar system.

This one is coming from interstellar space on a high inclination 175 degree orbit, perhaps originating from the thin galactic disk.

Our models suggest that periods of habitability on Mars have been the exception, rather than the rule, and that Mars generally self-regulates as a desert planet.

When it comes to keeping a planet balmy and mild, it isn't enough just to start out that way—there need to be mechanisms for stability over time that can respond to changes on and around the planet.

Scientists think that Earth does this through a finely balanced system that moves carbon from sky to rock and back again. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the planet, but warmer temperatures also speed up reactions that lock up carbon dioxide into rock, which eventually counteracts the temperature rise. Eventually, carbon leaks back out into the atmosphere via volcanic eruptions. Over millions of years, this cycle appears to have kept Earth relatively stable and hospitable for life.

On Mars, the researchers suggested, a similar cycle could also take place—but a self-limiting one.

Paper:

Carbonate formation and fluctuating habitability on Mars

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09161-1

UFO Crashes & Coverups: The Alien Retrieval Files

The article presents a previously unknown hymn in praise of Marduk, the Esagil, Babylon and the Babylonians. It contains unparalleled descriptions of the healing powers of Marduk, the splendor of Babylon, the spring borne by the Euphrates to the city’s fields and the generosity of the Babylonians themselves. The text survives in 20 manuscripts, from the 7th to the 2nd/1st centuries BCE, and it can be shown that it was a fixture in the school curriculum of the time. The author of this highly accomplished piece immortalized his devotion to his city, gods, and people in words that resonated until the final decades of cuneiform culture.

Dust devils on Mars could be crackling with electric currents, according to a new study — and scientists are a little concerned about this because a buildup of such charge could harm rovers rolling along the surface of Mars.

As the sun heats the Martian surface, air near the surface gets heated. Hot air is lighter than cool air, and so it tends to rise. Pockets of hot air therefore rise through cold air, rapidly forming an upward current. The sudden uprush causes air to speed horizontally inward to the center of a newly forming vortex. If the conditions are right, the vortex completes formation and starts spinning. As the air continues to rise, the vortex gets stretched vertically — sort of like a noodle — making the vortex spin even more quickly. As the vortex picks up speed, the wind swirls and kicks up dust. This creates a dust devil.

In short, dust devils are like little gusts of dust high on adrenaline.

UCLA researchers have made a significant discovery showing that biological brains and artificial intelligence systems develop remarkably similar neural patterns during social interaction. This first-of-its-kind study reveals that when mice interact socially, specific brain cell types synchronize in "shared neural spaces," and AI agents develop analogous patterns when engaging in social behaviors.

This new research represents a striking convergence of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, two of today's most rapidly advancing fields. By directly comparing how biological brains and AI systems process social information, scientists reveal fundamental principles that govern social cognition across different types of intelligent systems.

Although our analyses are limited to a single Egyptian individual who, on the basis of his relatively high-status burial, may not be representative of the general population, our results revealed ancestry links to earlier North African groups and populations of the eastern Fertile Crescent. Analogous links were indicated in our biological affinity analyses of dental traits and craniometrics of the Nuwayrat individual, as well as in previous morphological studies based on full samples.

The genetic links with the eastern Fertile Crescent also mirror previously documented cultural diffusion (such as domesticated plants and animals, writing systems and the pottery wheel), opening up the possibility of some settlement of people in Egypt during one or more of these periods.

The Nuwayrat genome also allowed us to investigate the Bronze Age roots of ancestry in later Egypt, highlighting the interplay between population movement and continuity in the region.

Future whole-genome sequencing of DNA from more individuals will allow for a more detailed and nuanced understanding of ancient Egyptian civilization and its inhabitants.

Results demonstrate the interplay between freehand and bipolar knapping, reflecting a flexible technological strategy to exploit the available radiolarite.

Freehand percussion was mainly used in flake production, while the bipolar technique facilitated initial core reduction and late-stage exhaustion.

The consistent microlithisation at the site is also evident in the exploitation of other locally available raw materials, such as limestone, flint, and quartz, supporting previous studies demonstrating small flakes’ effectiveness in diverse tasks.

The Permian–Triassic Mass Extinction (PTME), the most severe crisis of the Phanerozoic, has been attributed to intense global warming triggered by Siberian Traps volcanism.

However, it remains unclear why super-greenhouse conditions persisted for around five million years after the volcanic episode, with one possibility being that the slow recovery of plants limited carbon sequestration.

Here we use fossil occurrences and lithological indicators of climate to reconstruct spatio-temporal maps of plant productivity changes through the PTME and employ climate-biogeochemical modelling to investigate the Early Triassic super-greenhouse.

Our reconstructions show that terrestrial vegetation loss during the PTME, especially in tropical regions, resulted in an Earth system with low levels of organic carbon sequestration and restricted chemical weathering, resulting in prolonged high CO2 levels. These results support the idea that thresholds exist in the climate-carbon system whereby warming can be amplified by vegetation collapse.

Professor Garry Nolan & Ross Coulthart: Full interview UFO UAP News

The dark history of werewolves - Craig Thomson. TED-Ed

Awareness about UFOs also plays a crucial role in education and scientific engagement. It encourages people—especially students—to take interest in fields like astronomy, astrophysics, aerospace engineering, and planetary science. It also promotes critical thinking, urging individuals to distinguish between science-based evidence and myth.

Above all, discussions around UFOs remind us to stay curious and open-minded. While we may not yet have proof of intelligent life beyond Earth, our expanding knowledge of space and unexplained phenomena suggests that the universe holds many secrets still waiting to be uncovered. Raising awareness about UFOs is ultimately about embracing the unknown, encouraging discovery, and keeping our eyes—and minds—open to the vast possibilities of the cosmos.

With our very busy skies in the last century, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been renamed the less dramatic Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).

Believe in UFOs or not, 3.7 million people in the US alone claim to have been abducted by aliens

Otherworldly encounters and unexplained disappearances investigated on the documentary include the Bradshaw Ranch in Arizona, which was acquired by the US government and sealed off after years of UFO sightings.

The toxicity of arsenic has challenged life for billions of years, but the timing of when complex organisms first evolved strategies to cope with this threat remains elusive. Here, we study 2.1-billion-year-old (Ga) Francevillian macrofossils, some of Earth’s earliest complex life forms, to establish their biogenicity and to ascertain how they managed arsenic toxicity.

The studied specimens thrived in low-arsenic marine waters, yet displayed strikingly high levels of arsenic, which was actively sequestered in specialized compartments in their bodies to mitigate toxicity. Upon their death, arsenic was released and incorporated into pyrite nuclei. The patterns observed in the fossils are distinct from abiotic concretions but similar to some seen in later eumetazoans, reinforcing their biological affinity.

Our findings highlight that early complex life faced significant arsenic stress, even in low-concentration marine environments, which prompted the development of essential survival mechanisms.

Astronomers have discovered a distant galaxy that is a "cosmic fossil" which has remained "frozen in time" for billions of years.

Just as dinosaur fossils here on Earth are used to probe the evolution of life, this cosmic fossil in the form of the galaxy KiDS J0842+0059 could be used to understand cosmic evolution.

A cosmic fossil is a galaxy that has managed to remain unchanged by collisions and interactions with other galaxies. That means they can act as pristine time capsules to help astronomers study earlier galaxies.

Altruistic behaviors such as prey sharing are prosocial acts that can instigate and perpetuate various forms of reciprocity. Subsequent relationship dynamics provide a foundation for the evolution of societal norms and associated encephalization in social taxa, like primates and dolphins. Some cultures within these families benefit from interactions with other mammal species but accounts of any wild animals attempting to provision humans are extremely rare.

In this article, we present 34 cases of both sexes and all age classes of killer whales (Orcinus orca) offering prey and other items to people who were on boats (n = 21), in the water (n = 11), and on shore (n = 2) in four oceans.

A total of 18 species were offered—six fishes, five mammals, three invertebrates, two birds, one reptile, and one seaweed.

In almost every case the whales awaited a human response before subsequently reacting.

The occurrence of these events suggests a limited cost to exploratory behaviors in some populations of this species. We suggest these apparently nonrandom cases may be representative of interspecific generalized altruism.

This behavior may represent some of the first accounts of any wild predator intentionally using prey and other items to directly explore human behavior and thus may highlight the evolutionary convergence of intellect between highest order primates and dolphins.

What is dark energy and why is it so important?

If the universe only contained ordinary matter and dark matter, we would expect the gravitational pull of all the mass in the universe to be slowing down the universe's expansion in the same way that if you throw a ball up, Earth's gravity pulls it back down.

However, in 1998, astronomers measuring the distance to far-away supernovae discovered that the expansion had started to get faster instead of slower.

To explain this, scientists invoked dark energy, an unknown something that, unlike matter, gravitationally repels instead of attracts, pushing the universe apart almost like "anti-gravity." The simplest version of dark energy is Einstein's original idea for a cosmological constant, as a way to balance the action of gravity in his theory of general relativity.

The mysterious dark energy constitutes nearly 70% of the universe today. And while we can't see dark energy directly, it determines how our universe is expanding and its eventual fate.

Previously, the gold standard for cosmic microwave background measurements was provided by Planck satellite data, taken a decade ago.

The improved measurements from the South Pole Telescope, when combined with the DESI experiment and other CMB datasets, reduce the likelihood of a cosmological constant and increase the preference for time-evolving dark energy models.

Historically, research into anxiety has predominantly focused on vertebrate models, particularly rodents and humans, due to their more complex nervous systems and behavioral repertoires. By extending this research to pond snails, a simpler invertebrate model, the study provides novel insights into the fundamental mechanisms of anxiety and its modulation.

Here, we demonstrate that after being exposed to fish water, which simulates the presence of predators, pond snails (Lymnaea stagnalis) exhibit a series of sustained fear responses. These include increased aerial respiration, changes in righting behavior, and reduced escape responses. Notably, these behaviors persist even after the stressor (fish water) is removed, indicating that they likely represent an anxiety-like state rather than a simple conditioned reflex. Additionally, exposure to fish water enhances long-term memory formation for the operant conditioning of aerial respiration, suggesting that the predator scent potentially induces a state of heightened alertness, which enhances memory consolidation processes. Furthermore, when snails experience fish water alongside an appetitive stimulus (carrot), they form configural learning—a higher form of learning – where the appetitive stimulus now triggers a fear response instead of eliciting feeding.

The light that the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope collected to create this image reached the telescope after a journey of 250 million years. Its source was the spiral galaxy UGC 11397, which resides in the constellation Lyra (The Lyre). At first glance, UGC 11397 appears to be an average spiral galaxy: it sports two graceful spiral arms that are illuminated by stars and defined by dark, clumpy clouds of dust.

What sets UGC 11397 apart from a typical spiral lies at its center, where a supermassive black hole containing 174 million times the mass of our Sun grows. As a black hole ensnares gas, dust, and even entire stars from its vicinity, this doomed matter heats up and puts on a fantastic cosmic light show.

The scientists who precisely measure the position of Earth are in a bit of trouble. Their measurements are essential for the satellites we use for navigation, communication and Earth observation every day.

But you might be surprised to learn that making these measurements – using the science of geodesy – depends on tracking the locations of black holes in distant galaxies.

The problem is, the scientists need to use specific frequency lanes on the radio spectrum highway to track those black holes.

And with the rise of wifi, mobile phones and satellite internet, travel on that highway is starting to look like a traffic jam.

Why we need black holes

Satellites and the services they provide have become essential for modern life. From precision navigation in our pockets to measuring climate change, running global supply chains and making power grids and online banking possible, our civilisation cannot function without its orbiting companions.

To use satellites, we need to know exactly where they are at any given time. Precise satellite positioning relies on the so-called “global geodesy supply chain”.

This supply chain starts by establishing a reliable reference frame as a basis for all other measurements. Because satellites are constantly moving around Earth, Earth is constantly moving around the Sun, and the Sun is constantly moving through the galaxy, this reference frame needs to be carefully calibrated via some relatively fixed external objects.

As it turns out, the best anchor points for the system are the black holes at the hearts of distant galaxies, which spew out streams of radiation as they devour stars and gas.

These black holes are the most distant and stable objects we know.

This is a viewpoint expounded by influencers in various online subcultures, such as the manosphere, pick-up artist culture, and other male-dominated spheres, and is quickly absorbed by the audience, drawing them deeper within these spheres and instilling more and more of the subcultures’ ideologies.

The speed at which the ‘nice guys finish last’ worldview can get internalised makes sense from a scientific perspective. It is a universal desire among people to be liked, respected, and considered attractive. Many who frequent these online spaces are people – often teenagers – who haven’t received guidance on how to be perceived in the way they desire. Schools generally do not teach their pupils about how to meet basic needs like being liked and having status: in short, how to live.

The International Network Against Witchcraft Accusations and Ritual Attacks was formed in 2022 to connect the different groups and initiatives working on this issue across the globe.

It seeks to raise awareness about the human rights abuses taking place as a result of beliefs in witchcraft or sorcery and encourage action by states and individuals to end them. 

The International Network aims to raise support for the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Resolution on the Elimination of Harmful Practices Related to Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attack (July 2021). 

The members of the International Network fully support the right of freedom of religion and belief and recognise that activity related to belief in witchcraft and sorcery can be positive. Our mission focuses solely on the harmful practices that are related to such beliefs, such as attacks, tortures and stigmatisation of those accused of witchcraft and those individuals who are ritually attacked as a result of such beliefs. We use the terms witchcraft and sorcery as general categories to include all the terms used across the world to describe the belief that a person has the power to cause harm using supernatural means.

Studies show that the average attention span is now only eight seconds. That's about as much time as it takes to read a few sentences before being distracted.

A new national survey of 1,000 American adults commissioned by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine finds that stress and anxiety contribute most to a short attention span (43%), followed by lack of sleep (39%) and digital devices (35%).

Other contributing factors include boredom or lack of interest (31%); multitasking (23%); lack of physical activity (21%); poor diet/hydration (20%) and medical conditions such as ADHD (18%).

Only 25% of survey respondents said they don't have trouble with their attention span.