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Your T cells work hard to fight disease. Unfortunately, "friendly fire" from T cells can sometimes harm the body's healthy tissues.

For people with autoimmune disease, T cell reactivity is a big problem. Haywire T cell responses lead to autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease.

In recent years, scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have discovered that T cells may also contribute to the development of Parkinson's disease. Researchers in the laboratory of LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr.Biol.Sci., have found that many people with Parkinson's disease have T cells that target key proteins, called alpha-synuclein and PINK1, on vulnerable brain cells.

Earlier this year, Sette and his colleagues published a study innpj Parkinson's Diseasethat sheds light on exactly which subtypes of T cells target alpha-synuclein. Their findings offered further clues that T cell reactivity plays a role in Parkinson's disease. Still, the scientists didn't have a timeline to show when T cells might contribute to disease development.

"We can see these reactive T cells in people after they develop Parkinson's, but what happens before that?" says LJI Visiting Scientist Emil Johansson, Ph.D., a researcher in the Sette Lab and co-author of the study.

Now we have answers. In a newnpj Parkinson's Diseasepaper, Sette and his colleagues show that potentially harmful T cell reactivity is highest during the "prodromal" period in Parkinson's — the years before patients receive a diagnosis.

"This T cell immunity could be a marker for early Parkinson's treatment, even before people show symptoms," says Sette, who was senior author on the new paper. "And there's reason to think that treating Parkinson's in the very early stages can lead to a better outcome."

The prodromal period in Parkinson's disease can last for decades before a person develops noticeable symptoms such as tremors and cognitive impairments.

Because prodromal Parkinson's disease is very difficult to detect, the LJI team studied T cell reactivity in research volunteers at high risk of developing Parkinson's disease. These volunteers had genetic risk factors for Parkinson's and some had symptoms such as disrupted REM sleep cycles and loss of sense of smell, which can be early signs of Parkinson's disease development.

The researchers used a technique called Fluorospot to learn more about T cells found in blood samples from these study volunteers. This technique revealed which volunteers had high levels of T cells that reacted to alpha-synuclein or PINK1 — and when those T cell numbers were highest.

Sette and his colleagues found that potentially harmful T cells show up early on, well before the onset of noticeable motor symptoms, such as tremors. "You can see that T cell reactivity before diagnosis," says Sette.

In fact, T cell reactivity to PINK1 was at an all-time high before diagnosis.

Sette warns against jumping to conclusions. Parkinson's is a complex disease, and the new research doesn't prove that T cells are actually driving the inflammation associated with Parkinson's disease.

"Parkinson's disease is associated with the destruction of nervous system cells. Does that destruction cause autoimmunity — or is the autoimmunity the cause of the disease? That's the chicken-and-the-egg of inflammation in Parkinson's disease," says Sette.

"Certainly, the fact that this T cell reactivity is highest when patients are closest to a diagnosis is intriguing," Sette adds. "The finding suggests T cells could have something to do with it."

Next steps for helping patients

The new research may guide the development of early diagnostic tools. In the meantime, LJI scientists are looking for ways to block inflammation and protect brain cells.

As Johansson explains, some T cells actually help dial back inflammation to protect our tissues. "We want to see if there are specific T cells that are protective," says Johansson. "Could they interfere in inflammation and maybe reduce the number of autoimmune T cells?"

Sette and his colleagues are also working to understand the role of T cells in other neurodegenerative diseases.

"We are very interested in diseases such as Alzheimer's, for example, where a lot of progress has been made toward identifying people in very early stages of the disease progression," says Sette.

Additional authors of the study, "T cell responses towards PINK1 and α-synuclein are elevated in prodromal Parkinson's disease," included first author Antoine Freuchet, Gregory P. Williams, Tanner Michealis, April Frazier, Irene Litvan, Jennifer G. Goldman, Roy N. Alcalay, David G. Standaert, Amy W. Amara, Natividad Stover, Edward A. Fon, Ronald B. Postuma, John Sidney, David Sulzer, and Cecilia S. Lindestam Arlehamn.

This study was supported by LJI & Kyowa Kirin, Inc. (KKNA- Kyowa Kirin North America), the Swedish Research Council (grant references 2024-00175), Aligning Science Across Parkinson's (ASAP-000375), and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

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A groundbreaking study has revealed that small but mighty zooplankton — including copepods, krill, and salps — are key players in the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb and store carbon.

Led by an international team of researchers, and published inLimnology and Oceanography, the study quantifies for the first time how these tiny creatures collectively enhance carbon sequestration through their seasonal, vertical migrations.

The Southern Ocean is a key region for carbon storage. Traditional thinking is that the carbon storage in the Southern Ocean is dominated by gravitational sinking of detritus produced by large zooplankton grazers, such as krill.

This new research concerns another more recently described process called the 'seasonal migrant pump'. This process sees zooplankton migrate each year from surface waters to depths below 500m, storing carbon via their respiration and mortality during this deep overwintering phase.

This figure shows the traditional view of how zooplankton transport carbon to depth (left panel) by eating phytoplankton in surface waters in summer, whereby their waste material (Particulate Organic Carbon, POC) sinks passively to great depth, thereby storing the carbon for thousands of years. This new study shows that a winter process known as the 'seasonal migrant pump' also leads to a substantial deep carbon storage (right panel). The zooplankton migrate downwards in autumn to overwinter below 500m where their respiration and death directly inject around 65 million tonnes of carbon annually into the deep ocean.

The team first built a big database of zooplankton collected in thousands of net hauls from around the Southern Ocean, dating from the 1920s to the present day. From these they quantified the extent of the zooplankton's annual descent to overwinter at great depths, where they respire CO2 — directly and efficiently injecting carbon into the deep ocean.

Why does the 'Seasonal Migrant Pump' matter:

The Southern Ocean absorbs approximately 40% of all human-made CO2 taken up by oceans, yet the role of zooplankton has been underestimated. Unlike sinking detritus, which removes both carbon and essential nutrients like iron, migrating zooplankton efficiently inject carbon into the deep ocean while recycling nutrients near the surface. This 'Seasonal Migrant Pump' could become even more important as marine ecosystems respond to climate change.

Dr Guang Yang, first author and Marine Ecologist from Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "Our work shows that zooplankton are unsung heroes of carbon sequestration. Their seasonal migrations create a massive, previously unquantified carbon flux — one that models must now incorporate."

Prof. Angus Atkinson MBE, co-author and Senior Marine Ecologist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, added: "This study is the first to estimate the total magnitude of this carbon storage mechanism. It shows the value of large data compilations to unlock new insights and to get an overview of the relative importance of carbon storage mechanisms."

Dr Katrin Schmidt, co-author and Marine Ecologist at the University of Plymouth, said: "The study shows the 'seasonal migrant pump' as an important pathway of natural carbon sequestration in polar regions. Protecting these migrants and their habitats will help to mitigate climate change."

Dr Jen Freer, co-author and Ecological Modeller at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), added: "Krill are famous for their role in the Antarctic food web, but we find that copepods significantly dominate carbon storage overwinter. This has big implications as the ocean warms and their habitats may shift."

This research stresses the urgent need for updates to climate models to include zooplankton-driven carbon fluxes. It also highlights the necessity to manage and protect Southern Ocean ecosystems, where industrial fishing and warming threaten krill populations — a key species that supports both carbon export and Antarctica's unique biodiversity.

This international study was a collaboration among scientists from China, UK, and Canada, and leverages a century's worth of data on zooplankton biomass, distribution, respiration and mortality across the Southern Ocean.

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The central estimate of the remaining carbon budget for 1.5°C is 130 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) (from the beginning of 2025). This would be exhausted in a little more than three years at current levels of CO2 emissions, according to the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change study published today in the journal Earth System Science Data, and the budget for 1.6°C or 1.7°C could be exceeded within nine years.

Prof. Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study, said: "Our third annual edition of Indicators of Global Climate Change shows that both warming levels and rates of warming are unprecedented. Continued record-high emissions of greenhouse gases mean more of us are experiencing unsafe levels of climate impacts. Temperatures have risen year-on-year since the last IPCC report in 2021, highlighting how climate policies and pace of climate action are not keeping up with what's needed to address the ever-growing impacts."

This year's update of key climate system indicators carried out by a team of over 60 international scientists included two additional indicators, sea-level rise and global land precipitation, to give a total of 10 indicators1. This information is crucial for decision-makers seeking a current, comprehensive picture of the state of the global climate system.

In 2024, the best estimate of observed global surface temperature rise was 1.52°C, of which 1.36°C can be attributed to human activity2. The high level of human-induced warming and its high warming rate are due to global greenhouse gas emissions remaining at an all-time high in recent years.

According to the study, 2024's high temperatures are "alarmingly unexceptional," given the level of human-caused climate change. This human influence is at an all-time high and, combined with natural variability in the climate system (which causes temperatures to vary naturally year-to-year), has pushed global average temperature rise to record levels.

While reaching 1.5°C of global temperature rise in a single year does not mean there has been any breach of the landmark Paris Agreement – for that, average global temperatures would need to exceed 1.5°C over multiple decades – these results do reaffirm how far and fast emissions are heading in the wrong direction. And the impacts will only stop worsening when CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation reach net zero.

When analysing longer-term temperature change, best estimates show that between 2015-2024 average global temperatures were 1.24°C higher than in pre-industrial times, with 1.22°C caused by human activities, meaning that, essentially, our best estimate is that all of the warming we have seen over the last decade has been human-induced.

Human activities have resulted in the equivalent of around 53 billion tonnes of CO2 (Gt CO2e) being released into the atmosphere each year over the last decade, primarily due to increasing emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. In 2024, emissions from international aviation – the sector with the steepest drop in emissions during the pandemic – also returned to pre-pandemic levels.

GHG emissions have also led to higher levels of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Combined with declines in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) leading to planet-cooling aerosols, the outcome is that the planet is continuing to heat up. The damage caused by aerosols to human health far outweighs any minimal cooling 'gains', and there are other short-lived GHGs that can and should be tackled alongside CO2, such as methane (CH4), that could provide a short-term cooling compensating for the aerosol decline.

Human activities have also been affecting the Earth's energy balance. Surplus heat accumulating in the Earth's system at an accelerating rate is driving changes in every component of the climate system. The rate of global heating seen between 2012 and 2024 has about doubled from the levels seen in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to detrimental changes of vital components, including sea level rise, ocean warming, ice loss, and permafrost thawing.

Dr. Karina Von Schuckmann, Senior Advisor, Ocean Science for Policy at Mercator Ocean International said: "The ocean is storing about 91% of this excess heat driven by greenhouse gas emissions, which leads to ocean warming. Warmer waters lead to rising sea levels and intensified weather extremes, and can have devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. In 2024, the ocean reached record values globally."

Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level has also increased by around 26 mm, more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8 mm per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century.

Dr. Aimée Slangen, Research Leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research said: "Since 1900, the global mean sea level has risen by around 228 mm. This seemingly small number is having an outsized impact on low-lying coastal areas, making storm surges more damaging and causing more coastal erosion, posing a threat to humans and coastal ecosystems. The concerning part is that we know that sea-level rise in response to climate change is relatively slow, which means that we have already locked in further increases in the coming years and decades."

IPCC's last assessment of the climate system, published in 2021, highlighted how climate change was leading to widespread adverse impacts on nature and people, with rapid and deep reductions in GHGs emissions needed to limit warming to 1.5°C.

Prof. Joeri Rogelj, Research Director at the Grantham Institute and Climate Science & Policy Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London said: "The window to stay within 1.5°C is rapidly closing. Global warming is already affecting the lives of billions of people around the world. Every small increase in warming matters, leading to more frequent, more intense weather extremes. Emissions over the next decade will determine how soon and how fast 1.5°C of warming is reached. They need to be swiftly reduced to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement."

2) The study calculated 1.52°C as the best estimate of observed global surface temperature in 2024. This number differs from the 1.55°C given by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2024 report. This is owed to slightly distinct selections from the available datasets included. The number has varied by similar amounts in past years. Future work will aim to harmonise the approaches.

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The Cambrian explosion was an extraordinary phenomenon in the evolution of life on the planet that led to the emergence of many animal phyla and the diversification of species. During this period, some 530 million years ago, most of the basic body plans of organisms that have survived to the present day emerged. However, this great explosion of life that changed the evolutionary landscape on Earth may have occurred millions of years earlier than previously thought, a hypothesis now reinforced in a study published in the journalGeology.

This is a main conclusion of a new study that analyses the body profiles of organisms — symmetry, segmented bodies, exoskeletons, etc. — from around 545 million years ago by analyzing trace fossils, which are the fossilized marks in rocks and sediments left by the activity of organisms in the past.

The authors of the article are the experts Olmo Miguez Salas, from the Faculty of Earth Sciences at the University of Barcelona, and Zekun Wang, from the Natural History Museum in London (United Kingdom).

Fossil traces of extinct animals

The Cambrian explosion is a unique period in the history of life that poses many unanswered questions. To delve into the biodiversity of this period, most studies in paleontology tend to focus on the study of organisms that had hard parts. However, the study of trace fossils (or ichnofossils) opens up the possibility of discovering what the activity of hard-bodied, soft-bodied or skeletally deficient organisms preserved in the stratigraphic record was like.

"The trace fossil record provides valuable information about evolutionary periods when soft-bodied fauna were dominant," says Olmo Miguez Salas, a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral researcher at the UB's Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics. "Fossil traces reflect the behavior of the organism that generates them, which is determined by habitat and responses to environmental stimuli. Therefore, they are an indicator of the paleoecological conditions in which the organisms that generated them lived."

The authors have focused on the study of trace fossils in the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition, "a period of recognized paleoevolutionary interest that was a turning point in the evolution of complex life on Earth," says Miguez Salas.

In this transition, there was a radical change in biodiversity and in the structure of organisms and ecosystems. "The Ediacaran fauna was dominated by complex, multicellular soft-bodied organisms. The transition to the Cambrian involved the extinction of much of the Ediacara fauna, and a rapid diversification of complex multicellular life forms with hard parts (e.g. exoskeletons). This is the evolutionary core from which most modern animal phyla emerged: what is known as the Cambrian explosion," notes the researcher.

The Cambrian explosion may have happened much earlier

The study published inGeologyquantitatively indicates that organisms with slender body profiles thrived around 545 million years ago. "These organisms probably possessed coelomic hydrostatic bodies, with an anteroposterior axis, muscles and possibly segmentation," the expert says.

"Furthermore, these organisms could move in a specific direction (directional locomotion) and probably possessed sensory capabilities to move and feed on heterogeneous substrates in a habitat dominated by microbial mats. Therefore, the so-called Cambrian explosion and its evolutionary implications may have occurred much earlier than estimated."

These adaptations in body profile and mobility allowed these early animals to thrive in increasingly dynamic and complex environments, an ecological engineering that could promote evolutionary innovations. The methodology of the study was based on the analysis of the linear proportionality exhibited by the trace trajectories of modern and fossilized animals. Subsequently, this scaling law has been applied to locomotor traces of Ediacaran-Cambrian fossils (e.g.Archaeonassa,Gordia,HelminthopsisandParapsammichnites).

Although some previous studies had described trace fossils associated with mobile benthic bilateral organisms in the Ediacara fauna, detailed quantitative approaches were lacking and there were still many unknowns about the body shape of these organisms (length, width, cephalization, etc.). The findings of the new study establish an innovative quantitative approach to analysing the fossil locomotion traces from ancient times, early animal anatomy and paleoecological dynamics.

"This new discovery opens the door to quantitatively study future Ediacara trace fossils discovered in the coming years and to corroborate that the Cambrian explosion did not happen in the Cambrian, but many millions of years earlier. Moreover, the scaling laws obtained in this study enable the study of the morphological evolution of different faunal phyla generating fossil locomotion traces, not only during this evolutionary period, but also during other evolutionary periods of similar importance, such as the great diversification event of the Ordovician," concludes Olmo Miguez Salas. ​​​​​​​

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Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka scientists have discovered that it takes mere minutes for a species of sex-changing fish to develop dominant behavior after a change in the pecking order.

The new study led by the Department of Anatomy and published onProceedings of the Royal Society B, examines the New Zealand spotty, or paketi, a fish that can change from female to male during adulthood in response to a change in social hierarchy.

It found that the sex change process begins almost immediately when a dominant spotty is removed from a group.

Lead author Haylee Quertermous, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anatomy, says although the full sex change process takes weeks, it only takes minutes for a second-ranked fish to take advantage of the power vacuum and assert dominant behaviors.

"The aggressive behaviors (called 'rushes') involved the dominant fish swimming rapidly towards subordinate individuals," she says.

"Sometimes the dominant fish will make physical contact with the subordinates, including taking bites at them, usually around their tail and fins. These aggressive behaviors are usually accompanied by the subordinate quickly swimming away ('escaping') from the dominant fish."

While she expected to be able to see behavior changes within an hour of removing the dominant fish, she was surprised by just how rapid the change could be.

"In many of the tanks, second-ranked fish increased their aggression within just a few minutes after removal of the dominant fish."

She cautions the dominant behavior that accompanies a female to male sex change in spotties does not indicate a change from typically 'female' to 'male' behavior, as other sex-changing fish species such as clownfish for example, change from male to more dominant female fish.

The researchers observed that spotties form linear dominance hierarchies based on size, with larger individuals dominating smaller ones.

They sought to determine which fish in the hierarchy were more likely to change sex when the opportunity arose.

Results show dominant, larger fish are more likely to change sex, and when social hierarchies are disrupted, less dominant fish can quickly change their behavior to seize new opportunities.

The study also delved into the neural mechanisms underlying spotties' social interactions, finding that the social decision-making network in the fish brain is highly involved in establishing dominance.

Fish that attained dominant positions showed significant differences in this network compared to fish of all other ranks.

Dr Kaj Kamstra, who led the neurobiological aspects of the research, says the findings provide valuable insights into the complex interplay between social behavior and neural processes in these fish.

"They also highlight the importance of social context in shaping individual behavior, shedding light on the evolution of social behavior and the flexibility of brain mechanisms in adapting to changing social environments.

"The research has broader implications for understanding social dynamics in other species, even humans."

The findings can be applied to other species of sex-changing fish where social dominance appears to be the most common trigger for sex change, and could prove beneficial for aquaculture and open water fisheries, with many commercial valuable fisheries dependent on fishes that change sex, for example, New Zealand's blue cod.

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For 540 million years, the ebb and flow in the strength of Earth's magnetic field has correlated with fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen, according to a newly released analysis by NASA scientists. The research suggests that processes deep inside the Earth might influence habitability on the planet's surface.

Earth's magnetic field arises from the flow of material in the planet's molten interior, which acts like a giant electromagnet. The flow isn't perfectly stable, and this causes the field to change over time.

Many scientists have argued that the magnetic field is crucial for protecting the atmosphere from eroded by energetic particles coming from the Sun. But, the authors of the study inScience Advancespoint out, the role of magnetic fields in preserving the atmosphere is an area of active research. Before addressing the complexity of the cause-and-effect relationship between magnetic fields and oxygen levels, the study authors decided to see whether Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere have fluctuated in ways that demonstrate a link.

The history of the Earth's magnetic fields is recorded in magnetized minerals. When hot minerals that rise with magma at gaps between spreading tectonic plates cool down, they can record the surrounding magnetic field. The minerals retain the field record as long as they are not reheated too severely. Scientists can deduce historic oxygen levels from ancient rocks and minerals because their chemical contents depend on the amount of oxygen available when they were formed. Data for both Earth's magnetic field and oxygen extend over comparable ranges in databases that myriad geophysicists and geochemists have compiled. Until now, the authors of the new study say, no scientists had made a detailed comparison of the records.

"These two datasets are very similar," said coauthor Weijia Kuang, a geophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Earth is the only known planet that supports complex life. The correlations we've found could help us to understand how life evolves and how it's connected to the interior processes of the planet."

When Kuang and colleagues analyzed the two separate datasets, they found that the planetary magnetic field has followed similar rising and falling patterns as oxygen in the atmosphere for nearly a half billion years, dating back to the Cambrian explosion, when complex life on Earth emerged.

"This correlation raises the possibility that both the magnetic field strength and the atmospheric oxygen level are responding to a single underlying process, such as the movement of Earth's continents," said study coauthor Benjamin Mills, a biogeochemist at the University of Leeds.

The researchers hope to examine longer datasets to see if the correlation extends farther back in time. They also plan to investigate the historic abundance of other chemicals essential for life as we know it, such as nitrogen, to determine whether they also support these patterns. As for the specific causes linking the Earth's deep interior to life on the surface, Kopparapu said: "There's more work to be done to figure that out."

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The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has unveiled the very first "mega" images of the cosmos obtained thanks to the extraordinary features and wide-field view of its LSST camera — the largest in the world. The camera took nearly two decades to build and involved hundreds of scientists across the globe, including a number of CNRS teams. The world-wide First Look unveiling event is held on June 23 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

The impressive, car-sizedLegacy Survey of Space and Timecamera is like nothing seen before: thanks to its 3200-megapixel resolution and the wide field of view of the telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory1, the LSST camera can photograph 45 times the area of the full moon in the sky with each exposure. The high-definition images, which use six different colour filters, capture the entire southern night-sky in just three nights of shooting. One year after its journey from the United States to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, the first "mega" images will be unveiled on June 23 at a press conference held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. This worldwide premiere is the culmination of 25 years of research and construction by international teams, including several research teams from CNRS2.

The exceptional quality of these initial images show that the telescope is ready to start its mission: to scan the entire southern hemisphere sky by taking 1,000 high-definition photographs using six colour filters, every three nights for the next ten years. Studied end-to-end, these scans will provide a high-definition, four-dimensional film of the evolving processes of the Universe. The ten-year project will also generate unprecedentedly rich and profound views of the southern sky and reveal the faintest and furthest-away objects of the cosmos. For the first time on a large scale, this vast survey will reveal the slightest changes in the Universe, from nearby celestial phenomena, such as asteroids and comets, to very distant ones, like supernovae. The project paves the way for major advances in cosmology in dark matter and dark energy, as well as our understanding of our solar system.

CNRS: a key component of this international projectThe project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory built the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) camera. As historic partners, SLAC called on CNRS scientists to help build the focal plane of the camera and help design and build its robotic filter exchange system, which will automatically change the camera's colour filters — each weighing 24-38 kgs — 5-15 times per night. By measuring the quantity of light emitted by night-sky objects, and by converging the images taken through the different filters, it will make it possible to precisely determine their position and distance in relation to the Earth. Other CNRS scientists helped develop the computing infrastructure for the quantitative and qualitative data analysis of the gigantic trove of images that will be collected from the 17 billion observable stars and 20 billion observable galaxies. The goal of this painstaking effort is to create the most comprehensive catalogue of data on the universe.

Twenty terabytes of collected data will be stored every night. In France, the France Data Facility (IN2P3) (CNRS) in Lyon will store and process 40% of the collected raw image data. This data will be released to scientists around the world at regular intervals to foster groundbreaking discoveries and breakthroughs over the coming decades.

Why develop a ground-based telescope?Even with 25 space telescopes currently in use, ground-based observation remains essential in documenting the Universe in its entirety. Larger and more sensitive, ground-based instruments produce higher-precision exposures as a result. These instruments also record larger volumes of data than space-based ones, as the remote downloading of data from the latter remains a complex process. Last but not least, ground-based telescopes can also be repaired and improved with increasingly efficient tools. With this state-of-the-art camera, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is the latest addition to the fifty or so structures operating equipment and infrastructure to observe the universe from Earth and space.

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Biological drugs have improved the lives of many people with severe asthma. However, a new study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows that some immune cells with high inflammatory potential are not completely eradicated after treatment.

Biological drugs (biologics) have become an important tool in the treatment of severe asthma.

"They help most patients to keep their symptoms under control, but exactly how these drugs affect the immune system has so far remained unknown," says Valentyna Yasinska, consultant in pulmonary medicine at Karolinska University Hospital and doctoral student at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Medicine in Huddinge.

In a new study published in the scientific journalAllergy, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have explored what happens to the immune cells of patients being treated with biologics. By analyzing blood samples from 40 patients before and during treatment, they found that instead of disappearing during treatment, certain types of immune cell – which play a key part in asthma inflammation – actually increased.

"This suggests that biologics might not attack the root of the problem, no matter how much they help asthma patients during treatment," says Jenny Mjösberg, professor of tissue immunology at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Medicine in Huddinge. "Continued treatment might be necessary to keep the disease under control."

The study is based on data from patients with severe asthma sourced from the BIOCROSS study. The researchers used advanced methods such as flow cytometry and single-cell sequencing to determine the properties and function of the immune cells.

"We were surprised to find that blood levels of inflammatory cells increased rather than decreased," says Lorenz Wirth, doctoral student at the same department at Karolinska Institutet. "This could explain why inflammation of the airways often returns when the treatment is tapered or discontinued. It is important that we understand the long-term immunological effects of these drugs."

Little is still known about the long-term effects of biologics like mepolizumab and dupilumab since they are relatively new, having been prescribed to asthmatics for less than ten years.

The next stage of the study will be to analyse samples from patients with a long treatment history and to study lung tissue to see how the immune cells are affected in the airways.

The study was financed by grants from the EU (Horizon 2020), the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Centre for Innovative Medicine, the Swedish state, the Torsten Söderberg Foundation, Karolinska Institutet and the ChAMP Consortium.

Any conflicts of interest are reported in the published paper.

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Research led by Earth scientists at the University of Southampton has uncovered evidence of rhythmic surges of molten mantle rock rising from deep within the Earth beneath Africa.

These pulses are gradually tearing the continent apart and forming a new ocean.

The findings, published inNature Geoscience, reveal that the Afar region in Ethiopia is underlain by a plume of hot mantle that pulses upward like a beating heart.

The team's discovery reveals how the upward flow of hot material from the deep mantle is strongly influenced by the tectonic plates — the massive solid slabs of Earth's crust — that ride above it.

Over millions of years, as tectonic plates are pulled apart at rift zones like Afar, they stretch and thin — almost like soft plasticine — until they rupture. This rupturing marks the birth of a new ocean basin.

Lead author Dr Emma Watts, who conducted the research at the University of Southampton and is now based at Swansea University, said: "We found that the mantle beneath Afar is not uniform or stationary — it pulses, and these pulses carry distinct chemical signatures. These ascending pulses of partially molten mantle are channelled by the rifting plates above. That's important for how we think about the interaction between Earth's interior and its surface."

The project involved experts from 10 institutions, including the University of Southampton, Swansea University, Lancaster University, the Universities of Florence and Pisa, GEOMAR in Germany, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Addis Ababa University, and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

The Afar region is a rare place on Earth where three tectonic rifts converge: the Main Ethiopian Rift, the Red Sea Rift, and the Gulf of Aden Rift.

Geologists have long suspected that a hot upwelling of mantle, sometimes referred to as a plume, lies beneath the region, helping to drive the extension of the crust and the birth of a future ocean basin. But until now, little was known about the structure of this upwelling, or how it behaves beneath rifting plates.

The team collected more than 130 volcanic rock samples from across the Afar region and the Main Ethiopian Rift.

They used these, plus existing data and advanced statistical modelling, to investigate the structure of the crust and mantle, as well as the melts that it contains.

Their results show that underneath the Afar region is a single, asymmetric plume, with distinct chemical bands that repeat across the rift system, like geological barcodes. These patterns vary in spacing depending on the tectonic conditions in each rift arm.

Tom Gernon, Professor of Earth Science at the University of Southampton and co-author of the study, said: "The chemical striping suggests the plume is pulsing, like a heartbeat. These pulses appear to behave differently depending on the thickness of the plate, and how fast it's pulling apart. In faster-spreading rifts like the Red Sea, the pulses travel more efficiently and regularly like a pulse through a narrow artery."

Links to volcanism and earthquakes

This new research shows that the mantle plume beneath the Afar region is not static, but dynamic and responsive to the tectonic plate above it.

Dr Derek Keir, Associate Professor in Earth Science at the University of Southampton and the University of Florence, and co-author of the study, said: "We have found that the evolution of deep mantle upwellings is intimately tied to the motion of the plates above. This has profound implications for how we interpret surface volcanism, earthquake activity, and the process of continental breakup."

"The work shows that deep mantle upwellings can flow beneath the base of tectonic plates and help to focus volcanic activity to where the tectonic plate is thinnest. Follow on research includes understanding how and at what rate mantle flow occurs beneath plates," added Keir.

Dr Watts added: "Working with researchers with different expertise across institutions, as we did for this project, is essential to unravelling the processes that happen under Earth's surface and relate it to recent volcanism. Without using a variety of techniques, it is hard to see the full picture, like putting a puzzle together when you don't have all the pieces."

Materials provided byUniversity of Southampton.Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The pristine samples from asteroid Ryugu returned by theHayabusa2mission on December 6, 2020, have been vital to improving our understanding of primitive asteroids and the formation of the Solar System. The C-type asteroid Ryugu is composed of rocks similar to meteorites called CI chondrites, which contain relatively high amounts of carbon, and have undergone extensive aqueous alteration in their past.

A research team at Hiroshima University discovered the presence of the mineral djerfisherite, a potassium-containing iron-nickel sulfide, in a Ryugu grain. The presence of this mineral is wholly unexpected, as djerfisherite does not form under the conditions Ryugu is believed to have been exposed to over its existence. The findings were published on May 28, 2025, in the journalMeteoritics & Planetary Science.

"Djerfisherite is a mineral that typically forms in very reduced environments, like those found in enstatite chondrites, and has never been reported in CI chondrites or other Ryugu grains," says first and corresponding author Masaaki Miyahara, associate professor at the Graduate School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Hiroshima University. "Its occurrence is like finding a tropical seed in Arctic ice — indicating either an unexpected local environment or long-distance transport in the early solar system."

Miyahara's team had been carrying out experiments to understand the effects of terrestrial weathering on Ryugu grains. While observing the grains by field-emission transmission electron microscopy (FE-TEM) for effects of weathering, they found djerfisherite in the number 15 grain of sample plate C0105-042.

"The discovery of djerfisherite in a Ryugu grain suggests that materials with very different formation histories may have mixed early in the solar system's evolution, or that Ryugu experienced localized, chemically heterogeneous conditions not previously recognized. This finding challenges the notion that Ryugu is compositionally uniform and opens new questions about the complexity of primitive asteroids," Miyahara elaborates.

Ryugu is a part of a larger parent body that formed between 1.8 to 2.9 million years after the beginning of the Solar System. This parent body is thought to have originated in the outer region of the solar system, where water and carbon dioxide existed in the form of ice. Inside the parent body, heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements caused the ice to melt around 3 million years after its formation. The temperature during this process is estimated to have remained below approximately 50℃.

In contrast, the parent bodies of enstatite chondrites, which are known to contain djerfisherite, are believed to have formed in the inner region of the solar system. Thermodynamic calculations indicate that djerfisherite in enstatite chondrites formed directly from high-temperature gas. In addition, hydrothermal synthesis experiments have shown that djerfisherite can also form through reactions between potassium-bearing fluids and Fe-Ni sulfides at temperatures above 350 ℃.

This led the team to propose two hypotheses for its presence in the Ryugu grain: either it arrived from another source during the formation of Ryugu's parent body; or, it was formed intrinsically when the temperature of Ryugu was raised to above 350 ℃.

Preliminary evidence indicates that the intrinsic formation hypothesis is more likely to be true. The next steps will be to conduct isotopic studies of this and other Ryugu grains, to determine their origins. "Ultimately, our goal is to reconstruct the early mixing processes and thermal histories that shaped small bodies like Ryugu, thereby improving our understanding of planetary formation and material transport in the early solar system," Miyahara concludes.

Materialsprovided byHiroshima University.Note: Content may be edited for style and length.