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Not every invasive species is as dramatic or fearsome as a Burmese python or a feral hog—but that doesn’t lessen their impact on native ecosystems. Coastlines across North America and Europe have contended with the spread of the Manila clam (Ruditapes philippinarum) for at least the last century. Although a favorite among seafood lovers, the shellfish is also taking over the habitats of local shellfish, and even hybridizing with similar species.

After decades of slow conquest, the delicious mollusk is finally setting up shop along the New England coastline. According to wildlife biologists writing in the journal Biological Invasions, the region marked the Northern Hemisphere’s last holdout against the Manila clam.

“Given that Manila clams are everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere, it was only a matter of time before they showed up here, and we’ve been keeping an eye out for them,” Aly Putnam, a study co-author and University of Massachusetts Amherst ecologist, said in a statement.

The first tip off to the mollusk’s arrival came via a photo and a text message. Last summer, Putnam received a picture from colleague and study co-author El Fernekees Hartshorn depicting a suspected Manila clam shell. Putnam and fellow researcher Carolina Bastidas were leading a biodiversity workshop on Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor at the time, and began paying attention to the coastlines. It wasn’t long before they located many more Manila clams.

Coincidentally, an entirely separate team led by the Center for Coastal Studies had recently started investigating reports of “weird clams” near Provincetown, Massachusetts. They soon combined forces, confirming that Manila clams were definitely beginning to thrive in the area.

“I realized that this was a golden opportunity to not only combine forces, but also to catch a detailed snapshot of the moment a new invasive species establishes itself,” added study co-author and Williams College marine scientist James Carlton. 

The Manila clam’s origins are nowhere near Cape Cod. Instead, they’re native to Russia’s Sakhalin Islands and the coasts of Japan and southern China. The clams were introduced both intentionally and accidentally to North America and Europe during the early 20th century, where they quickly proliferated. The food industry also capitalized on the shellfish, turning them into a $7 billion-a-year industry.

While dense colonies can adversely impact local ecologies, they also offer nutritious food for crabs, small mammals, and seabirds. Now that they’re confirmed across the Northern Hemisphere, ecologists can begin to examine how the clams are spreading throughout New England, and how they will impact their new homes. Although they are likely here to stay, it’s not necessarily a terrible situation.

“On the positive side, because Manila clams can become a source of food for other animals, they can relieve pressure on native species—-for example, the predator pressure of green crabs on softshell clams,” explained Bastidas. “So, there could also be positive impacts.”

The post Invasive (but delicious) clams discovered in Cape Cod appeared first on Popular Science.

Morgan Stanley has an interesting 142 page report on SpaceX that has several material inconsistencies between its high-level assumptions about orbital compute scale, mass/payload, capex, and monetization and the known technical specifications for Starship launches, satellite power density, and real-world AI compute deals. However, we can set aside agreeing about the AI data centers in ...

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The United States officially conducted 1,054 nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992, but only one of them is known to have satellites among its casualties. In 1962, the U.S. detonated the 1.4-megaton Starfish Prime thermonuclear warhead 250 miles above the planet. The resultant electromagnetic pulse (EMP) blast was vastly wider than expected, and even damaged an estimated 300 streetlights in Hawaii around 900 miles away. In space, Starfish Prime’s lingering artificial radiation belt also unintentionally destroyed many of the earliest satellites launched by the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.

“When you have a nuclear detonation in outer space, basically the whole body of the bomb becomes ionized, and nearly every single electron in the weapon’s mass becomes free,” Areg Danagoulian, a nuclear scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said in a statement.

Once free, these ions merge into the Van Allen radiation belt, where the electrons bombard everything in their path. This further ionizes particles while producing damaging radiation. To put it simply—detonating nuclear weapons in space can be as disastrous as detonating them on Earth.

In 1967, the U.S., U.K., and Soviet Union signed the Outer Space Treaty designating the cosmos as the “province of all mankind” while also banning the usage or testing of nuclear weapons beyond the planet’s atmosphere. Another 115 other nations including China have since entered into the agreement, which by all accounts kept space neutral and nuke-free for nearly 55 years—until the satellite called Cosmos2553.

In 2022, Russia launched their alleged surveillance and sensor satellite, but watchdogs and critics immediately raised suspicions about its true purpose. Cosmos2553 has an unusual orbit, routinely passing through some of the most radioactive regions above Earth.

“It goes through the most hostile environment possible around the planet,” said Danagoulian. “Why would you put a satellite in that orbit? Well, that location is likely the best point for trapping electrons if you were to detonate a thermonuclear weapon.”

Cosmos2553’s true purpose remains unclear, but the worst case scenario envisioned by Danagoulian would have devastating consequences. A nuclear anti-satellite weapon in its position hypothetically has the capability to destroy many international communication and internet satellites, GPS, and reconnaissance equipment.

To make matters worse, it’s still extremely difficult to confirm whether or not a satellite houses nuclear weapons. After reviewing the available unclassified research, Danagoulian realized there still weren’t even any proposed methods to assess suspicious orbiters. But that doesn’t mean the problem is unsolvable.

According to Danagoulian, there is a way forward for international monitoring against nuclear satellites. In a feasibility study published today in Nature, he describes a new satellite-based sensor system that could be launched near a suspected orbiter, then monitor it for signs of nuclear activity. The key lies in a type of atomic reaction called spallation that involves energized protons in radioactive conditions.

“When an energetic proton slams into elements with a high atomic number, like uranium and plutonium, each proton may knock out something like 40 neutrons. That’s a ridiculously large number,” said Danagoulian. “We’re talking about millions of protons per second per square centimeter, with many of them generating 40 neutrons.”

Basically, there are a lot of smoking guns—if you have the right equipment to find them. In his system, two neutron sensing panels called scintillators are installed between synthetic crystal diamond devices. The combined array allows it to differentiate between nuclear radioactive neutrons versus naturally occurring protons and electrons. From there, the device can estimate the neutrons’ direction of origin to determine if they’re natural atmospheric particles or those from a nuclear-bearing satellite.

Danagoulian calculated that his sensor system could flag an orbiting nuke with 99 percent accuracy if it spent a week orbiting within about 2.5 miles of the target. However, multiple sensor satellites within around 0.6 miles of the suspected weapon could get an answer after only a few hours.

“You can fake intelligence, but you can’t fake physics,” he added.

The MIT researcher stressed his system is currently purely hypothetical, and requires more development and real-world testing. At the same time, he hopes his feasibility study highlights that such solutions are not only realistic, but worth exploring.

“The goal right now is to get national labs to use this work for their own research, and to get policymakers to seriously consider this technology as a potential part of national technical means,” said Danagoulian.

The post New satellite system could detect nukes in space appeared first on Popular Science.

SpaceXAI will make Grok 4.5 available to the public today. Elon says it is an Opus-class model, but faster, more token-efficient and lower cost. Based on strong positive feedback from customers in our beta test program, @SpaceXAI will make Grok 4.5 available to the public tomorrow. It is an Opus-class model, but faster, more token-efficient ...

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It’s no surprise how lovebirds got their name, and how that name became slang for an affectionate human couple. Mated pairs of these African parrots feed, cuddle, groom each other, and become distressed when separated. Their behavior is summed up even better by their Spanish name: inseparables.

Lovebirds are unusual not just because of their shameless PDA, but because they choose one mate for life. While more than 90 percent of birds pair up in the practice of “social monogamy,” most choose a new mate every year or every few years. Besides lovebirds and some other parrots, only a few birds actually mate for life, including swans, eagles (shout out to our favorite bald eagle team: Jackie and Shadow), and albatrosses. Mating for life is even less common in non-avian animals.

You might expect that it would be more practical to keep the same partner year after year than to have to find a new one every breeding season. But it’s not always the most effective plan, especially if the animal couple doesn’t stay together year-round. 

From an evolutionary standpoint, sticking with one mate is not in all animals’ best interests. Although some animals have lifelong partners, most prefer different breeding strategies. And far from the perfect picture of two lovebird soulmates, even monogamous animal relationships include just as many complications as human ones. 

Mating for life has many advantages

In birds, “social monogamy is linked to biparental care—the male and the female caring for the offspring together,” says Dr. Bart Kempenaers, Director of Ornithology at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Seewiesen, Germany. For bird parents, “it’s advantageous to stay together because you have to coordinate this care. With more experience breeding together, this coordination might be easier.” 

Teamwork for long-term partners isn’t limited to co-parenting. Kempenaers notes that some birds, such as cardinals, partner year-round, not just during the breeding season. When there’s no offspring to rear, the male and female cardinal defend their territory together. 

Mammals and other animals can also derive various benefits from a lifelong partnership. In addition to sharing parental care, wolves, coyotes, and foxes hunt and defend territory with their partners, while pairs of beavers maintain their dams and lodges together. Breeding pairs of French angelfish (one of the only fish that mate for life) don’t care for their young at all, but stick together to patrol their feeding grounds.

What makes some birds more likely to stay together

In birds, Kempenaers identifies longevity as one major influence on whether a species mates for life. “To stay together, both partners have to live to the next breeding season,” he says. And since “larger birds, like albatrosses, live much longer than a small bird like a chickadee” on average, says Kempenaers, the birds which mate for life are mostly large-bodied and long-lived. Albatrosses, which mate for life, can live over 50 years; chickadees, which do not, live only two or three years in the wild. 

Great blue herons do not mate for life. While they are monogamous during a single breeding season, they choose new partners every year. Image: NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty Images / Ronen Tivony

Small animals also have more predators to contend with than large ones, decreasing their chances of surviving from one breeding season to the next. Many of the birds and mammals that mate for life, such as eagles and wolves, have few natural predators. 

There are also other factors which influence mating habits. For two partners to stay together long-term, they have to be able to consistently find each other every breeding season. Birds that mate for life are generally those that either stay together year-round, or return to the same places at the same time every year. They may even use the same nesting site every year, which biologists call “site fidelity.” 

Bird couples can “divorce”

The breakup of a pair of birds is often called “divorce,” but Kempenaers cautions that this term “suggests that it’s a decision by one or both partners to stay together or not, and that’s not necessarily the case.” 

Some birds that mate for life, such as cranes and swans, migrate together in family units. However, in most migratory birds, partners travel separately. This can lead to birds choosing a new mate out of necessity more than incompatibility with the previous partner. 

“If one of the partners comes back [from migration] but the other partner isn’t back yet, then this individual faces a dilemma,” says Kempenaers. 

“It doesn’t know if its partner is still alive. The breeding season is happening, it’s ready to breed. So this bird might decide to mate with another individual rather than wait for the partner who might never show up.” Even if the previous year’s partner shows up late, Kempenaers notes, the one who got there first will typically stay with its new partner.

For birds, seizing the opportunity to breed comes before human notions of fidelity. A study of mute swans found that their low rate of “divorce” was three times higher in pairs that did not breed successfully than in pairs that did (nine percent versus three percent). 

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Animals also “cheat” on each other 

Social monogamy in animals doesn’t necessarily mean sexual monogamy. Even for species that mate for life, there may be survival benefits to teaming up with one partner while continuing to mate and have offspring with others. 

This behavior is common across bird species. In some cases, says Kempenaers, the “social father” cares for the offspring, “but he isn’t the father of any of them” genetically, or at least some of them. A study of black swan pairs found at least one baby fathered by a different male in up to 40 percent of nests. Similar behavior has been observed in socially monogamous mammals, such as wolves and gibbons.

“If you ask why it happens, or what the advantages are, it’s always important to distinguish between the male side and the female side,” says Kempenaers. Males who mate with many females might be trying to father as many offspring as possible.  However, says Kempenaers, “it is more difficult to understand” why female birds often take the initiative by leaving their nesting territory for liaisons with neighboring males. 

This might ensure that the female’s own genes get passed on, just in case her nesting partner is infertile. It might even bring in extra parental care from the other males, as has been observed in some birds, such as the blue tit. But the exact drivers for this behavior remain a mystery. 

There’s still much we don’t know about animal mating habits

Kempenaers explains that scientists are still working to define what better cooperation actually looks like in partners that stay together long-term. Other existing questions include how different mating systems evolve and why they can vary so much, even among species that have a lot in common. 

Kempenaers was part of a 2023 study on the Alaskan breeding grounds of a shorebird called the long-billed dowitcher. Dowitchers are relatively large, long-lived birds that practice social monogamy. “Both the male and the female are essential for reproduction,” says Kempenaers, sharing tasks like incubating eggs. 

One might expect a bird with these characteristics to return to the same mate and nesting site, at least for several years in a row. This is what similar birds in the same environment as the dowitchers do. Yet dowitchers choose a new mate and a new place to nest every year. “We found this really puzzling,” says Kempenaers. “If all the others come back to the same place, why don’t the dowitchers do this?” 

To find out, researchers put satellite trackers on dowitchers and followed their movements throughout the year. They found that “the females leave much earlier than the males from the breeding grounds, and they winter at different places,” says Kempenaers. Crucially, once they have mated, “they never meet up again.” But why dowitchers behave this way when other socially monogamous birds in the same environment do not “remains a bit of an enigma,” he adds. 

In nature, fidelity has benefits for some, but not for others, though what those benefits are is not always perfectly clear. And while it’s tempting to see animal relationships in human terms, monogamy in the animal kingdom often looks very different from human romance.

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Do animals really mate for life? appeared first on Popular Science.

Melbourne, Florida, United States, 8th July 2026, CyberNewswire

BREAKING: The Pentagon has awarded SpaceX two of its biggest satellite contracts worth ~$6.5B • $4.16B for AMTI satellite constellation• $2.29B for Space Data Network• Builds military surveillance + space-based communications• For next-gen missile defense, per SpaceNews pic.twitter.com/c9GhFegiWg — DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 7, 2026 BREAKING: SpaceXAI plans to launch a new model with Cursor as ...

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Major clues to the origins of our planet—and life itself—are locked inside some three billion-year-old volcanic rocks from Western Australia. These ancient rocks show that water was likely already shaping Earth’s interior and driving volcanic activity over three billion years ago. 

The findings published today in the journal Nature Communications suggest that Earth was already running a version of the water-recycling processes that shape our planet today, even though our home planet was a dramatically different place billions of years ago. Geologists found signs that roughly three billion years ago water traveled deep beneath the Earth’s surface, helping to create the magmas that formed volcanoes like the ones found in the Pacific’s explosive Ring of Fire today. 

Every single day, Earth’s water is continually recycled through a process called plate tectonics. Ocean water is carried down into the Earth’s middle layer, or mantle. The water is then pulled down at subduction zones. In these zones, one tectonic plate slides beneath another, feeding volcanoes that are powerful enough to build continents. However, billions of years ago, that internal water recycling process worked completely differenly—if at all.

“The early Earth was too hot for plates to behave that way [pulling water down to the mantle],” Dr. Eric Vandenburg, a study co-author and geochemist at Australia’s Adelaide University, said in a statement. “So until now it has been unclear whether surface water could have made that journey more than three billion years ago, and if so, how.”

In other words, it may have been too hot for Earth’s early plates to move water down to the mantle the way it does today. 

To learn more, the team studied rocks from Western Australia’s Pilbara Craton. The rocks were formed between 3.6 billion and 2.8 billion years ago and are some of Earth’s oldest. The iron-rich rocks began forming before there was oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere—or even life itself. The Pilbara remains one of the few places where geologists can study the young Earth.

This image shows part of the Hamersley Basin in Western Australia, which lies on the southern Pilbara Craton. A craton is the stable, geologically inactive core of an ancient continent. The Pilbara Craton has remained intact, surviving the affronts of plate tectonics and erosion since the Archean Eon (four billion to 2.5 billion years ago). Image: NASA.

The team analyzed the chemical fingerprints preserved within the Pilbara Craton rocks and reconstructed events that occurred 3.1 billion years ago. Surprisingly, they found evidence that large amounts of water had already made its way deep into the Earth’s interior. All of that water also influenced the formation of volcanic rocks. The team believes that while modern plate tectonics may not have existed on Earth yet, a different process may have been bringing water into the mantle.

So, how was water getting so deep into the Earth without plate tectonics? The team proposes it was because of a mechanism they call dripduction. During dripduction, dense water-rich sections of the Earth’s cool outer crust sporadically sag and then collapse into the hotter mantle below. As these pieces of crust collapsed, they brought water down with them. The water was then released into the Earth’s mantle, creating magmas that fed volcanic eruptions.  When magma interacts with water, the intense heat turns that water into steam. The steam then expands and erupts along with the magma. That magma then solidified into rocks that geologists still study today. 

“The Earth wasn’t operating exactly as it does now, but it appears some of the key processes were already in place,” Vandenburg said.

For geologists, understanding when water first started moving deep underground helps explain one of our planet’s most critical processes. Plate tectonics influence everything from volcanic eruptions and continental growth. Shifting plates may even produce some of the chemical elements that are necessary for life to exist at all. These findings provide clues about how the Earth’s continents formed, and how our planet evolved into what we know today.

According to the team, these new findings suggest that Earth’s interior and surface may have been connected much earlier than we thought. Earth appears to have been a surprisingly dynamic young planet that was already recycling one of its most crucial ingredients: water.

The post Ancient rocks suggest water has shaped earth for 3.1 billion years appeared first on Popular Science.

For Luigi the lobster, it was simply time to grow. Literally. The spineless American lobster (Homarus americanus) recently molted—when a crustacean sheds its outer shell—in front of visitors to the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn. Luigi is an unusual shade of orange that is only seen in one in 30 million American lobsters.  

“On the morning in question, keeper staff discovered a molt in Luigi’s habitat,” William Hana, the Director of Animal Programs at New York Aquarium, tells Popular Science. 

“Based on our experience, molts typically occur during the evening hours and may continue overnight. Following the molt, Luigi displayed the bright coloration characteristic of a newly formed shell.”

During molting, crustaceans take in excess water. The water then pushes against the shell, and splits it. The lobster then takes the rest of its body out like taking a foot out of a shoe, as it sheds its old outer shell. A shiny new softshell then emerges as the animal’s exoskeleton. 

That new shell is soft and paper-thin, so crustaceans are more vulnerable after molting. Since Luigi was housed alone at the time, he did not have to worry about predators or aggressive behavior from other animals. 

Young lobsters tend to molt multiple times per year because they are growing more rapidly. Once they reach adulthood, lobsters tend to molt annually. Molting rates can vary between lobsters under human care like Luigi and those in the wild. Since aquarium lobsters live in a protected habitat with consistent feedings, they are typically able to devote more energy to growing instead of foraging and avoiding predators. However, one food source is consistent no matter where a lobster lives.

“Lobsters frequently consume their shed exoskeleton after molting,” Hana says. “This behavior allows them to reclaim calcium and other essential minerals needed to harden their new, soft shell. For this reason, our staff typically leave the shed shell in the habitat for several days following a molt so the animal has the opportunity to feed on it.”

American lobsters are typically a dark-blue green or greenish-brown color, but Luigi’s rare orange hue makes him look a little more like a lobster you may encounter on a dinner plate. 

He gets his color from a genetic mutation caused by the lack of proteins that help bond the pigments in his shell. The chances of finding an orange lobster like Luigi in the wild are about one in 30 million. He can also be viewed near a rare blue lobster (one in 200 million). Happy growing, crustaceans!

The post Super rare orange lobster molts at New York Aquarium appeared first on Popular Science.

SpaceX has officially requested FCC approval to launch and operate a third-generation satellite constellation of 100,000 satellites, designed to power human connectivity and AI-fueled progress. SpaceX communication satellites will scale to a 100x increase in bandwidth. It will 50x cheaper $/Gbps when launched using starship. The buildout was accelerated by up to 2 years by ...

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Don’t expect a dramatic, AI-assisted sci-fi encounter if humanity ever definitively detects evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Scouring the stars for signs of aliens is less about waiting for giant unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) to fly into view, and more about pouring through mountains of complex data looking for delicate biosignatures. 

In recent years, many researchers—including some at NASA—have advocated incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence in their search for organisms beyond Earth. Some of these approaches may show promise, but new research indicates much of today’s AI is even more easily duped by false positives than their human operators. 

“No matter what sequence of commands we started with, we were able to fool the AI 100 percent of the time,” Ankit Gupta, a Michigan State University (MSU) computer science engineer, said in a statement.

Gupta and colleague Christoph Adami recently ran an experiment to assess a specially designed AI program’s ability to identify hypothetical signs of biosignatures. To do this, they relied on a computer program developed at MSU called Avida, which simulates evolutionary processes with digital organisms. Avida treats replicating biological molecules like DNA as computer code, then uses these command strings to repeatedly copy themselves inside a “virtual Petri dish.” Importantly, each coding iteration is imperfect or contains fundamental changes—similar to how biological organisms reproduce.

Gupta and Adami then trained a neural network on tens of thousands of digital organisms inside Avida, some of which included the command to copy itself while others did not. After tasking their AI to classify the two organism types, the program achieved a nearly perfect accuracy rate. However, the AI quickly met its match once the researchers presented new examples it hadn’t previously encountered. In as few as 150 tiny shifts in organisms’ computer code, the AI began mistakenly identifying signs of life.

“AI has an Achilles’ heel. It can see a pattern and completely misclassify it,” Adami explained. “It’s a very serious vulnerability.”

Unlike here on Earth, it could be much harder to ensure a second set of (human) eyes on AI’s work aboard the next Mars rover or planetary probe. But similar AI false positives already affect far more than future space missions. Facial recognition software, self-driving cars, and medical scanners all rely on various machine learning programs to make their decisions. Putting too much faith in the technology’s reliability goes beyond misidentifying new lifeforms—it undermines existing life.

According to Adami, their findings aren’t an indictment of AI, but a reminder that people are still vital to any new field of scientific discovery.

“You need an independent way of checking [AI’s] work,” said Adami. “There needs to be a human in the loop.”

The post AI labels a lot of stuff as alien life appeared first on Popular Science.

Almost a decade ago, I finished my doctoral degree in archaeology with a thesis that investigated the hunting and gathering behavior of early Homo sapiens and our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals. 

To my non-archaeologist family members and friends, I was the Stone Age Expert, to whom all questions about anything Paleolithic should be directed. I developed some strong opinions about the viral “ancestral” or “Paleo” diet. I did my part to contribute to the rebranding of the Neanderthals’ image as a type of human and not a bunch of backwards, hairy brutes. To this day, my mom still emails me a link to any news article she finds on Neanderthals, Denisovans (another Paleolithic relative), or other ancient humans. 

When I explain my research interests to new acquaintances, I’m often asked questions like “what would you do if you met a Neanderthal?” or “do you think we’ll ever find a perfectly preserved frozen Neanderthal?” And, inevitably, “Could we clone a Neanderthal?” 

On the surface, that last question seems exciting. Considered more deeply, though, would we really want to bring back a species of human that hasn’t existed on Earth for tens of thousands of years? What gives us the right to decide? Would it be ethical to do so?

What even is “de-extinction?” 

In recent years, the idea of “de-extinction,” the re-engineering or cloning of extinct species, has gained a lot of media buzz. 

Colossal Biosciences, a biotechnology and genetic engineering firm, made headlines in 2024 claiming they had achieved the first de-extinction of the dire wolf. These are large, extinct canines (scientific name Aenocyon dirus) related to modern gray wolves (Canis lupus). 

Tens of thousands of years ago, dire wolves roamed grassland habitats in what is today North and South America. Visit the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and you can see an entire exhibit wall lined with dire wolf skulls excavated from their sticky graves, their bones stained a glossy walnut from the tar. 

A case of 404 dire wolf skulls are on exhibit at The La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. It is thought that packs of dire wolves attempted to feed on animals trapped in the asphalt and became mired themselves. Image: Contributor / Getty Images / Mel Melcon

Dire wolves have been extinct for around 10,000 years, dying out around the same time as the mastodons, giant sloths, and other megafauna that once lived in the Americas. Colossal’s initial “de-extinction” claims received a lot of backlash from the scientific community. 

A project summary on the company website reads: “[Colossal Biosciences] produced three living dire wolves: Romulus and Remus, born October 1, 2024, and Khaleesi, born January 30, 2025, marking the first successful de-extinction of a large apex predator in scientific history.” A few lines further down the page, though, the summary states:

 “Colossal Biosciences brought back the dire wolves by making 20 targeted edits across 14 genes in the common gray wolf genome.” 

The gray wolf genome contains around 19,000 genes. Colossal Biosciences edited 14 of those genes, a minuscule 0.073 percent change in the whole package of wolf DNA. Compared to a standard gray wolf, Colossal’s experimental pups are a bit larger, and their coats are white instead of patterned gray. However, dire wolves are still a totally different species and genus from gray wolves. 

In other words, these groups last shared a common ancestor about 5.7 million years ago—far more distant than the relationship between wolves and dogs. Put another way, wolves and dire wolves are no more closely related than wolves and African jackals, or bison and gazelles. 

The two species are so genetically different from one another that they wouldn’t likely be able to have offspring together. Despite their bold claims, Colossal hasn’t done much more than to make a gray wolf dressed in a dire wolf overcoat.

How does cloning work? 

In 1996, a team of scientists at the University of Edinburgh took DNA from the nucleus of a cell from a sheep’s udder and implanted it in a different sheep’s egg cell. 

Normally, an egg or sperm cell contains only half of an animal’s chromosomes, i.e. half of their total genetic code. When the sperm fertilizes the egg, the two sets of half-chromosomes merge, creating a new, unique combination. A cell from any other part of the animal’s body, called a somatic cell, contains the full chromosomal complement. 

By swapping a somatic cell’s nucleus into an egg cell, the research team created an embryo that would develop exactly as a fertilized egg normally would but without any genetic contribution from a male parent. The resulting lamb, named Dolly, was an exact genetic copy of the sheep that the original udder-cell nucleus came from.

Dolly, the first-ever cloned mammal, shares a pen with twin sheep, Megan and Morag, the first mammals successfully cloned from differentiated cells. Image: Contributor / Getty Images / Mathieu Polak

After Dolly’s birth, cloning became a hugely exciting field of study, and it wasn’t long before people were asking questions like “if we can clone an existing animal, can we clone an extinct species?” 

Unfortunately, the answer is no, even with the leaps and bounds that genetic engineering has taken over the past decades. The issue is that to clone an extinct species requires a complete, intact DNA sample from that species, and that is something we don’t yet have. 

What would we actually need to create a true clone of a Neanderthal?

The Human Genome Project, an international effort to map out the individual genes on all 23 pairs of human chromosomes, formally kicked off in 1990. The project officially ended in 2003, but the final complete map of the human genome wasn’t finished until in 2022, with the Y chromosome completed in 2023.

DNA fragments from Neanderthal remains have also been pieced together and stitched into a genome map over the past couple of decades. DNA is a surprisingly stable, robust molecule for something that looks so thin and fragile, but DNA that sits in the ground for tens of thousands of years is still susceptible to damage from its environment. 

Barring any miraculous Encino Man-style discoveries of frozen Neanderthal remains, a complete genome would have to be engineered in a lab, not extracted from bone. 

Puzzling out the Neanderthal genome is a huge accomplishment, but knowing the locations of all of the genes is only part of the picture. It’s still not completely clear how many of those genes work with one another, and how environmental factors might affect them. 

To clone a Neanderthal by engineering the genome on a molecular level, scientists would need to recreate all the same kinds of complex relationships that allow our genes to tell every cell in our body what to do. 

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There are big ethical concerns

We Homo sapiens have been the only species of human on Earth for tens of thousands of years, and as a population, we’re quite used to the idea. But go back 60,000 years or so, and there were multiple members of the genus Homo living in different parts of the world. 

Neanderthals were one type of human. We know this because remnants of Neanderthal DNA still exist in our genome, meaning that our respective populations crossed paths and mingled gene pools in the past. Thus, the idea of cloning a Neanderthal raises the same kinds of ethical concerns that come along with the prospect of cloning humans today. 

Currently, the mortality rate for experimentally cloned animals is exceptionally high. Even when a cloned animal is born successfully, severe health problems often emerge. Would we allow a human infant to undergo these stresses for the sake of scientific curiosity?  

Human cloning also raises the issue of what happens when we challenge individuality. Would a cloned human always see themselves as a shadow of their cell donor? We can’t know for sure. This is why, whenever anyone asks me if I think we could clone a Neanderthal, I say no. For the time being, Paleolithic archaeologists will continue to ask and answer questions about the past by investigating the myriad materials that our early human relatives left behind. 

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The post Could we ever clone Neanderthals? appeared first on Popular Science.

Texas, United States, 7th July 2026, TechnologyWire

Air quality is linked to a wide range of health issues including respiratory problems, cardiovascular complications, and cancer, and that list of concerns only continues to grow. According to researchers presenting this week at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), common pollutants may be fundamentally disrupting human sperm genetics—and these alterations may affect far more than male fertility.

One of the largest studies of its kind, the project took place from 2013 to2017 and included over 2,000 men in Salt Lake City, Utah. Volunteers provided researchers with semen samples initially after signing up, and then at two, four, and six month intervals. The researchers were particularly focused on examining changes to sperm DNA methylation. These chemical shifts regulate genetic activity without actually rewriting the DNA itself. Changes in methylation are already linked to genes utilized during chromosomal organization, cellular maintenance, and overall sperm development.

At the same time, the team also used regional data to estimate the men’s exposure to outdoor air pollutants during the roughly three-month window of sperm production known as spermatogenesis. These included common concerns like nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, fine particulates, and ozone. Although past studies already discovered evidence linking air pollution to semen quality, geneticists still do not fully understand how these adverse results occur at the molecular level.

The researchers flagged ozone and nitrogen dioxide as some of the most influential pollutants. The pair are frequently recorded at higher levels in urban areas like Salt Lake City due to natural gas combustion and traffic emissions.

“Our findings suggest that air pollution exposure during key stages of sperm development may be associated with changes in sperm DNA methylation, including in genes involved in spermatogenesis and early developmental processes,” Carrie Nobles, a study co-author and University of Massachusetts Amherst environmental health scientist, said in an accompanying statement.

Researchers pinpointed 39 DNA methylation changes associated with air pollution, especially in GNAS—an imprinted gene linked to poorer semen quality and fetal development. However, Nobles explained the GNAS implications are “particularly important.”

“Because imprinted genes can persist through early embryonic development, this raises important questions about whether fathers’ environmental exposures may influence not only fertility, but pregnancy and offspring health,” she said.

Since these are preliminary findings, Nobles stressed that it’s vital that researchers now work to replicate their results in future studies. She also explained that further investigations into measurable effects on men’s fertility and pregnancies are needed, as well as looking into other pollution sources.

“We know that couples exposed to air pollution often have difficulties becoming pregnant, and this may be one of the explanations amongst the myriad ways that pollution impacts our reproductive health,” former ESHRE chair Karen Sermon said of the study.

The post Air pollution may be changing sperm appeared first on Popular Science.

It’s one of military history’s most exciting chapters. In 218 BCE, Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps with a squadron of 37 war elephants to invade Italy. 

While we can’t say which route he used to cross this rugged terrain, a new study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) offers some new clues. The new analysis shows which of Hannibal’s potential routes would have been less taxing on his 40,000 men, 7,000 horses and 37 war elephants. His best option likely would’ve been the Col de la Traversette, a pass with an altitude of 9,669 feet on the border between Italy and France. 

Why did Hannibal cross the alps?

Hannibal hailed from Carthage, a dominant ancient Phoenician city-state and empire in present-day Tunisia. During the Second Punic War, Carthage controlled North Africa’s coast and the Iberian peninsula (present-day Spain and Portugal). Rome sought to use its naval dominance to force its rival to surrender. 

To bring the war right to Rome’s doorstep, Hannibal led his army over the Alps from France into Italy. This was easier said than done, as it required traversing rugged terrain, snow, and ice, while surviving mountain passes that were controlled by local tribesmen who could attack them from above. However, going through the mountain range meant he could avoid Rome’s fearsome navy on the Mediterranean and its army garrisons on land. 

Only two primary sources of the event survive and were written 20 and 160 years after the event. And since no archaeological evidence is available, interpreting the events of the crossing is difficult. All modern theories depend on interpreting the three place names used by the writer Polybius (Island, Skaras, and Allobroges) and the wider range of tribe and place names written by Livy. Scholars then compare those locations with current geographical knowledge.

According to Livy’s account, Hannibal marched his army across the Alps in just 16 days. However, Hannibal’s entire military campaign took over roughly two months and ended up being very costly. Hannibal lost upwards of 20,000 men and Carthage ultimately lost the war.

Why he used elephants for the crossing is still unclear. He may have intended them to provide a tactical element of surprise during his first battles against the Romans. He also may have hoped that the wonder of seeing these elephants may help him help recruit the Celts of Northern Italy to his side.

Saving energy

In this new study, a team from the University of Oxford in the U.K., the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), and Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany evaluated the competing theories about which route over the mountains Hannibal took. Previously, historians believed that he may have taken the Col du Clapier, an 8,127 feet-high mountain pass between Savoy, France, and Piedmont, Italy. 

The team used route modelling and elevation data, to estimate the energy cost of each possible Alpine crossing. They used data collected on how much energy modern African elephants would use to make a crossing like this, based on their body mass and the terrain. 

Their results suggest that the Col de la Traversette would have been both the shortest and most energetically efficient route. When compared to the Travesette route, traveling via the Col de Montgenèvre would have required 11 percent more energy. Col du Clapier would have required 16 percent more, while Col du Mont Cenis needed 19 percent more energy. 

The team’s models also underscore what a physical challenge it was to move an army (and elephants) through the mountains. If they took the Traversette route, the men would have lost 19 percent of their body fat reserves, which may be one factor behind the high human mortality rate later in battle. Hannibal lost roughly 20,000 men by the end of the campaign. 

Surprisingly, the new analysis suggests that the war elephants would have fared better on the crossing. Elephants would have only lost four percent of their fat reserves, based on the team’s models. These high energy reserves likely explain why many, if not most, of the elephants survived.

“The question of Hannibal’s exact route has been debated for generations,” Dr. Emilio Berti, a study co-author and biologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, said in a statement. 

“The new analysis does not eliminate all ambiguity, but it does strengthen the case for the Traversette route by demonstrating that it would better accommodate the demands of moving a large army that included elephants through extremely difficult alpine terrain.”

The post Mystery of Hannibal’s infamous Alps crossing gets a major clue appeared first on Popular Science.

SpaceX will be able to shape its valuation with key execution on building out and monetizing AI data centers and executing on Starship and V3 satellite deployment.

During last year’s brief visit from the comet 3I/ATLAS, astronomers got an extremely rare glimpse into the cosmos beyond our solar system. As only the third known interstellar object to pass by Earth, the frigid, dusty rock has already provided researchers with new and unexpected data about deep space. But in addition to recently learning about the comet’s surprisingly alcohol-laden, ice volcano-covered composition, astronomers now say they have a better sense of its age. According to chemical traces detailed in a study published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, 3I/ATLAS is very, very old.

“3I/ATLAS is a really exciting opportunity to probe the composition of another planetary system, one that formed long before our Sun and solar system even existed,” Rosemary Dorsey, an astrophysicist at the University of Helsinki and study co-author, said in a statement.

3I/ATLAS was extremely bright upon its approach to Earth in July 2025, unlike the previously documented interstellar objects 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov. This allowed Dorsey and colleagues a never-before-seen chance to examine details like its isotopic ratios—varying amounts of different forms of the same element. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, they paid particular attention to the carbon and nitrogen isotopes inside cyanide molecules swirling within 3I/ATLAS’ gas cloud. These traces are very susceptible to conditions present during a comet’s formation period, but afterwards do not alter much while it spends eons traveling through space.

Unlike local comets, the interstellar tourist contains unusually high nitrogen and carbon isotopic ratios. Based on this and other examinations, the team believes the comet was born in an outer region surrounding an ancient, low-metallicity star. These stellar objects contain few elements heavier than helium, implying they originated during a much younger era of the universe before it became more chemically diverse. Combined with evidence from other recent studies, it now appears that 3I/ATLAS began its travels long before the sun existed. The comet may even be over twice our yellow star’s age, making it more than 9 billion years old.

“[Interstellar comets] are sort of fossils from a planetary formation process that happened very far away, but that we get the chance to study from much closer,” added University of Edinburgh astronomer and study co-author Cyrielle Opitom.

3I/ATLAS is rapidly becoming more difficult to observe as it continues its journey out of the solar system, but the vast amounts of data astronomers collected while they could will will keep them busy for years. At least, until our next interstellar visitor arrives.

The post Comet 3I/ATLAS is older than the sun appeared first on Popular Science.

Tesla had its best-ever Q2 vehicle deliveries and there will be strong FSD sales. FSD V14-lite is rolling out to Hardware 3 vehicles and there will be more FSD sales in China and Europe. This is expected to significantly boost subscription revenue and improve used car resale values. The +34% QoQ delivery has fixed‑cost absorption ...

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Toronto, Canada, 6th July 2026, CyberNewswire