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Scientists discover a new creature that exists between life and not-life<: newly discovered organism appears to straddle the line between virus and cellsmall> (LINK) 30 June 2025

— Like a virus, this new organism 'Sukunaarchaeum mirabile' outsources some functions to its host, but can still create its own ribosomes and RNA. Its genome is also surprisingly small, and is roughly half the size (238,000 base pairs) of the next-smallest archaeal genome. Researchers in Canada and Japan outlined how they identified the new cellular entity named after a deity in Japanese mythology known for its small stature. Led by Ryo Harada, a molecular biologist from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the team chanced upon this strange creature while studying the bacterial genome of the marine plankton Citharistes regius. Within the genomic data, Harada and his team found a loop of DNA that didn't match with any known species. They eventually determined that the organism belonged to the domain Archaea — a group associated with prokaryotic cells, but from which eukaryotic cells (i.e. you and me) ultimately descended a couple billion years ago. "The discovery of Sukunaarchaeum pushes the conventional boundaries of cellular life and highlights the vast unexplored biological novelty within microbial interactions," the researchrs write. "Further exploration of symbiotic systems may reveal even more extraordinary life forms, reshaping our understanding of cellular evolution."

Trump delays by one month plan to cut satellite data access crucial to hurricane forecasting: Scientists have warned loss of data access to Noaa and Nasa experts could set hurricane forecasting 'back decades' (LINK) 30 June 2025

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced in a service change notice this week that it would be ending the importing, processing and distribution of data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS), essential for forecasting hurricanes (LINK) 28 June 2025

— Part of three weather satellites in low-Earth orbit they are maintained by NOAA in cooperation with the United States Department of Defense. The SSMIS provides critical weather information that can't yet be replaced by other satellites and weather instruments, according to NOAA. "This service change and termination will be permanent," wrote NOAA.

"After studying hundreds of studies of vaccine safety, I can see some of what RFK Jr. gets wrong" (LINK) 29 June 2025

The toilet paper Europeans use would horrify American doctors (LINK) 29 June 2025

Tomatoes have more genes than humans (LINK) 29 June 2025

RFK Jr's advisers back U.S. flu vaccination, but not shots with a rarely used preservative that antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism (LINK) 26 June 2025

Swiss trial shows organic farming is 85% as productive as conventional agriculture (LINK) 25 June 2025

— A globally unique open-air trial has been running for 47 years in Therwil in the Swiss canton of Basel-City.

'Extinction crisis' could see 500 bird species vanish within a century, triple the number of birds that went extinct in the previous 500 years (LINK) 24 June 2025

Photos show Swiss glaciers' uncertain future as 'ambassadors of climate change' (LINK) 24 June 2025

— Switzerland is continental Europe's glacier capital, with some 1,400 that provide drinking water, irrigation for farmland in many parts of Europe including French wine country, and hydropower that generates most of the country's electricity. The number has been dwindling. The Alpine country has already lost up to 1,000 small glaciers, and the bigger ones are increasingly at risk.

EU countries abandon anti-greenwashing talks after Italy pulls out (LINK) 23 June 2025

— The proposed law preventing companies from making misleading environmental claims now looks unlikely to be enacted. The negotiations were due to continue on Monday.

Scientists warn the Gulf Stream is on the verge of collapse with apocalyptic consequences: has been weakening for 100 years (LINK) 23 June 2025

— UK would be "fundamentally less habitable than it is at the moment." Temperatures could drop by 10C, and climate would be similar to that of Scandinavia. One study said it could collapse anywhere between 2025 and 2095.

Glass bottles found to contain 50x more microplastics than plastic: beer, soda, and lemonade had the highest contamination — study by Researchers at France's food safety agency ANSES (LINK) 22 June 2025

UK parliament votes for assisted dying paving way for historic law change (LINK) — ground.news: 375 media reports (LINK) 20 June 2025

French scientists discover new blood type in Guadeloupe woman (LINK) 20 June 2025

— The woman is the only known carrier of a new blood type, dubbed "Gwada negative", the French Blood Establishment (EFS) said. The discovery was made 15 years after researchers received a blood sample from a patient who was undergoing routine tests ahead of a surgery. "The EFS has just discovered the 48th blood group system in the world!" the agency said in a statement.

Climate misinformation turning crisis into catastrophe, report says: False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalized (LINK) 19 June 2025

FDA approves Gilead's twice-yearly HIV prevention injection, offering a powerful and convenient new option (LINK) 18 June 2025

— The launch of the injection faces potential threats, including the Trump administration's proposed cuts to federal funding for HIV prevention efforts.

Thermodynamics: Study solves 120-year-old problem and corrects one of Einstein's ideas (LINK) 17 June 2025

Transparent peer review to be extended to all of Nature's research papers (LINK) 16 June 2025

— "From today, all new submissions to Nature that are published will be accompanied by referees' reports and author responses — to illuminate the process of producing rigorous science."

AI monitors wildlife behaviour in the Swiss Alps (LINK) 16 June 2025

— scientists at EPFL have collected and curated MammAlps, the first richly annotated, multi-view, multimodal wildlife behaviour dataset in collaboration with the Swiss National Park. MammAlps is designed to train AI models for species and behaviour recognition tasks, and ultimately to help researchers understand animal behaviour better. This work could make conservation efforts faster, cheaper, and smarter. MammAlps was developed by Valentin Gabeff, a PhD student at EPFL under the supervision of Professors Alexander Mathis and Devis Tuia, together with their respective research teams.

— MammAlps brings a new standard to wildlife monitoring: a full sensory snapshot of animal behaviour across multiple angles, sounds, and contexts. It also introduces a "long-term event understanding" benchmark, meaning scientists can now study not just isolated behaviours from short clips, but broader ecological scenes over time—like a wolf stalking a deer across several camera views.

— The researchers set up nine camera traps that recorded more than 43 hours of raw footage over the course of several weeks. The team then meticulously processed it, using AI tools to detect and track individual animals, resulting in 8.5 hours of material showing wildlife interaction. They labeled behaviors using a hierarchical approach, categorizing each moment at two levels: high-level activities like foraging or playing, and finer actions like walking, grooming, or sniffing. This structure allows AI models to interpret behaviors more accurately by linking detailed movements to broader behavioral patterns.

— To provide AI models with richer context, the team supplemented video with audio recordings and captured "reference scene maps" that documented environmental factors like water sources, bushes, and rocks. This addition al data enables better interpretation of habitat-specific behaviours. "By incorporating other modalities alongside video, we've shown that AI models can better identify animal behaviour," explains Alexander Mathis. "This multi-modal approach gives us a more complete picture of wildlife behaviour."

The appendix is much more important than we once thought (LINK) 16 June 2025

— Not just a vestigial organ: an important component of immune function, especially in early life. May play role in protecting the gastrointestinal system from invading pathogens, and removal may be related to the increased incidence of other conditions such as heart disease and Parkinson's disease. The role of the appendix in maintaining microbial diversity therefore appears to be critical to overall health.

Fungus that can "eat you from the inside out" is spreading globally: Aspergillus fungus thrives because its genome bends easily to new pressures. It lives on soil, grains, animal feathers, even coral skeletons (LINK) 15 June 2025

— The range of A. flavus in Europe could jump about 16 percent, potentially putting another one million people at risk of infection. A. fumigatus, the chief culprit behind invasive aspergillosis, could expand its European footprint by 77.5 percent, threatening up to nine million more residents. In Africa, paradoxically, parts of the continent may become too hot for some fungi to survive, hinting at complex regional trade-offs.

Ocean acidity has reached critical levels, and we're all under threat (LINK) 15 June 2025

— Around 60 percent of deeper waters have gone beyond ocean acidification needed for shells and skeletons (surface aragonite saturation), and 40 percent of surface waters. It damages coral reefs, makes waters inhospitable for shell-building creatures, and kills off or weakens other marine life. That then has a knock-on effect on the rest of the ecosystem. "From the coral reefs that support tourism to the shellfish industries that sustain coastal communities, we're gambling with both biodiversity and billions in economic value every day that action is delayed."

Top AI researchers meet to discuss what comes after humanity (LINK : few details) 15 June 2025

— "Speakers at the weekend event talked about how AI can seek out deeper, universal values that humanity hasn't even been privy to, and that machines should be taught to pursue 'the good', or risk enslaving an entity capable of suffering."

Oceans are getting darker and marine life is under threat (LINK) 14 June 2025

— A new study reveals more than 20% of the Earth's oceans, an area larger than Asia, has darkened over the last two decades. Almost 90% of marine life lives in what is known as the photic zone; the surface part of the ocean where sufficient light penetrates to stimulate biological processes like photosynthesis and animal behavior. With an average depth of 200 meters (656 ft), the photic zone is vital for fish stocks and the global nutrient cycle. "Ocean darkening" occurs when sufficient light cannot penetrate these photic zones of the ocean.

— marine organisms, whose behaviours are influenced by photons, will have insufficient light to grow, move, hunt, and reproduce, forcing them to migrate vertically, closer to the ocean surface. When light-dependent species are forced upward into a smaller belt near surface waters, the competition for resources and food intensifies and animals are exposed to an elevated risk of predation.

Scientists just unearthed 346-million-year-old fossils that are changing everything we thought about evolution (LINK) 14 June 2025

— A fossil hunter's accidental discovery in a quiet Scottish quarry in 1984 has challenged our knowledge of one of evolution's biggest leaps the moment life crawled from water onto land. The creature looked like a small lizard but was actually far more ancient a stem tetrapod, a common ancestor of all amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Westlothiana lived 14 million years earlier than previously believed, thus changing evolutionary theories. It suggests: Limbs and lungs developed faster than anyone thought. Reptiles, birds, mammals (ammniotes) may have previously split from amphibians. Environmental anarchy, volcanoes, and poisonous lakes may have sped up evolution.

NPR: RFK Jr. sent Congress 'medical disinformation' to defend COVID vaccine schedule change (LINK) 13 June 2025

Switzerland 22nd of 28 European nations in development of solar and wind energy: 11% as against 28.3% average, 75% in Denmark (LINK in French) 12 June 2025

Strikingly simple 'dial' in the brain may help it distinguish imagination from reality (LINK) 12 June 2025

— The fusiform gyrus, a large ridge that runs across two lobes of the brain, is active both when you see something in reality and when you imagine something. The activity levels in that region predicted whether or not you think something is real, irrespective of whether you see or imagine it.

Swiss insurance to continue covering acupuncture and homeopathy (LINK) 12 June 2025

Scientists have discovered a hidden pattern and 'universal rule' governing all life on Earth: seven key areas where "biodiversity organization is deeply tied to environmental gradients, particularly temperature, precipitation, and habitat continuity": published 4 June (LINK) 11 June 2025

— "In every bioregion, there is always a core area where most species live," lead author Dr. Rubén Bernardo-Madrid of Umeå University explained in a release. "From that core, species expand into surrounding areas, but only a subset manages to persist. It seems these cores provide optimal conditions for species survival and diversification, acting as a source from which biodiversity radiates outward." Researchers analyzed the global distribution of amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles, dragonflies, trees, and rays, drawing from extensive ecological databases and mapping more than 48,000 geographic grid cells. The scientists identified seven distinct types of areas — or "biogeographical sectors" — that recur across the globe. Biodiversity hotspots (core areas) tend to have stable, resource-rich conditions that support a wide variety of endemic species. In contrast, species found in transitional zones are typically generalists or migrants, able to survive in more variable or marginal conditions but less unique to any region.

"Life from oceans to savannas explained with one single rule" — (LINK)

COVID vaccines and the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome: less than the risk of GBS from a COVID infection itself, and the mRNA vaccine decreases that risk (LINK) 8 June 2025

39% of the world's glaciers are already doomed over next century, and if the world continues its current climate policies the number will rise to 76 percent (LINK) 7 June 2025

— Glaciers in the US and Canada are the most affected, as 75 percent are already predicted to melt. The Hindu Kush and Karakoram ranges, meanwhile, have more stable futures. Vice: The study separated itself from others as it looked ahead past 2100, the previous stopping point of past research.

— The study's findings may read as devastating at first glance, but that's the opposite of what the researchers intended. Lilian Schuster, who co-led the study, told CNN that she and her peers wanted *to give a message of hope" through their work. "With the study, we want to show that with every tenth of a degree less of global warming, we can preserve glacier ice," she said, with fellow co-lead Harry Zekollari adding, "We're not activists, this is science talking."

Scientists at United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health propose 'minerals trust' to power green energy, protect communities (LINK) 7 June 2025

Scientists make breakthrough toward full cure for HIV (LINK) 6 June 2025

— As The Guardian reports, scientists at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne found a way to make the HIV virus visible, potentially laying the groundwork for ways to banish it from the body altogether. Author and Doherty Institute research fellow Paula Cevaal told the Guardian that it was "previously thought impossible" to deliver messenger RNA (mRNA) into HIV-containing white blood cells. But thanks to a new type of LNPs (bubbles of formulated fat called lipid nanoparticles), dubbed LNP X, the team found a way for these cells to accept the mRNA.

Breakthrough discovery offers new hope for treatment of memory loss due to Alzheimer's (LINK) 7 June 2025

Top CDC COVID vaccine expert resigns after RFK Jr. unilaterally restricts access (LINK) 3 June 2025

— It comes just a week after health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unilaterally revoked and altered some of the CDC's recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines, restricting access to children and pregnant people. The resignation also comes three weeks before CDC's experts and advisors are scheduled to meet to publicly evaluate data and discuss the recommendations for this season, a long-established process that was disrupted by Kennedy's announcement.

Nearly 40% of the world's glaciers are already doomed, scientists say (LINK) — ground.news: 72 media reports (LINK) 3 June 2025

— If current climate policies remain unchanged, global temperatures are expected to rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, resulting in the loss of approximately 76 percent of today's glacier volume and causing sea levels to increase by a minimum of 113 millimetres.

'Half the tree of life': ecologists' horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects (LINK) 3 June 2025