Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and FarWestGirl.
Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man (RIP), wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, JeremyBloom, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP), jlms qkw, and doomandgloom .
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos since 2007, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
Space
Watch NASA astronaut, 2 cosmonauts launch to the International Space Station on Thanksgiving morning.
Space.com
There's some spaceflight action on tap on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 27), but you'll have to get up pretty early to catch it.
A Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thanksgiving at 4:27 a.m. EST (0927 GMT; 2:27 p.m. local time), sending NASA astronaut Chris Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev toward the International Space Station (ISS).
You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency's YouTube. Coverage will start at 3:30 a.m. EST (0830 GMT).
On this day in space! Nov. 26, 2011: Curiosity Rover launches to Mars.
Space.com
On November 26, 2011, the NASA Curiosity rover launched to Mars.
Curiosity was the biggest and most powerful rover anyone had ever sent to the Red Planet. The two-ton science laboratory is about the size of a small SUV. The mission's goal was to search for habitable environments on Mars, or evidence that the planet could have been habitable in the past.
It launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. About nine months later, Curiosity made a challenging landing on Mars. It successfully used a new landing technology called a sky crane to gently lower it to the surface.
Watch China's Shenzhou 22 rescue ship arrive at Tiangong space station (video).
Space.com
Three Chinese astronauts finally have a reliable way to get home from orbit.
The uncrewed Shenzhou 22 spacecraft arrived at Tiangong space station today (Nov. 25) at 2:50 a.m. EST (0750 GMT and 3:50 p.m. Beijing time), about 3.5 hours after launching to orbit atop a Long March 2F/G rocket.
Shenzhou 22 is an unprecedented mission for China — an emergency flight mounted on a short timeline to help out three astronauts who have been "stuck" on Tiangong for the past 10 days.
After 5 years on Mars, NASA's Perseverance rover may have found its 1st meteorite (photos).
Space.com
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has found a possible meteorite on the surface of the Red Planet.
Perseverance spotted an unusual "sculpted, high-standing" rock nestled among "low-lying, flat and fragmented surrounding rocks", which got the attention of scientists right away, according to a blog post posted Nov. 13 on NASA's website written by Candice Bedford, a research scientist at Purdue University. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory rover spotted Phippsaksla on Sept. 2, initially using the left Mastcam-Z camera high on the rover's mast. Sept. 2 was Sol 1612 of the mission; a sol is a Martian day, which is slightly longer than Earth's.
Perseverance next used its laser instrument, known as SuperCam, to show that the nearly three-foot-long (31 inches, or 81 centimeters) rock is made of iron and nickel, which matches what we know about the composition of cores of large asteroids in the solar system. If its origin is confirmed, this would be Perseverance's first meteorite find since arriving at the Red Planet on Feb. 18, 2021.
Planets may make their own water as they form — could that mean more habitable worlds in the universe?
Space.com
Water isn't just delivered to planets by comets and asteroids — it can also be forged as worlds form, a new study finds.
For decades, scientists have debated the origin of Earth's water. One long-standing theory suggests that it was delivered by icy bodies from the outer solar system after Earth formed, while another proposes that the raw materials that make up our planet already held the ingredients necessary to generate water internally. Until now, however, this second hypothesis had never been tested under realistic laboratory conditions.
In a series of high-pressure, high-temperature experiments designed to mimic the fiery beginnings of a young planet, scientists recreated the extreme environment where such worlds' molten rock and hydrogen gas interact. These tests revealed that liquid water can, in fact, form naturally during the early stages of planet formation.
World and General
My bolding below: djt told the press on Saturday that he’d been on the phone with Bolsonaro the night before, saying that he’d be ‘seeing him very soon’. He seemed very surprised when the press told him that the former leader had been re-arrested and was in custody. ::snicker::
Jair Bolsonaro ordered to start 27-year prison term for plotting Brazil coup.
The Guardian
Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been ordered to start serving his 27-year sentence in a 12 sq metre bedroom in a police base in the capital, Brasília, after his conviction for plotting a coup.
The far-right populist, 70, who governed Latin America’s largest democracy from 2019 until 2022, was handed the punishment in September after the supreme court found him guilty of leading a criminal conspiracy to stop his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, taking power.
The plot – which involved a plan to assassinate Lula and his running mate, Geraldo Alckmin – foundered after military chiefs refused to take part and the court later convicted Bolsonaro and six accomplices of trying to “annihilate” Brazilian democracy and plunge the country back into dictatorship.
On Tuesday, the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes ruled that Bolsonaro should start serving his sentence after the case formally ended following a period for appeals. Bolsonaro has been living under house arrest since August and was taken into preventive custody on Saturday after unsuccessfully trying to cut off his electronic ankle tag with a soldering iron.
UK rejects Nigerian request to deport former politican jailed for organ trafficking.
The Guardian
The UK government has rejected a request by Nigeria to deport a former senior Nigerian politician convicted of organ trafficking.
Ike Ekweremadu, 63, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate and ally of the former president Goodluck Jonathan, is serving a sentence of nine years and eight months after being found guilty in 2023 of conspiring to exploit a man for his kidney.
Ekweremadu, his wife, Beatrice, and a co-conspirator, Dr Obinna Obeta, trafficked a young man to London with a view to harvesting his kidney, which they planned to transplant to Ekweremadu’s daughter Sonia in a private unit of an NHS hospital.
It was the first conviction for organ trafficking under the Modern Slavery Act.
Death toll in Hong Kong tower block fire rises to 44 with hundreds still missing.
The Guardian
The death toll from a huge fire that engulfed several residential tower blocks in Hong Kong has risen to 44, with 45 in critical condition and hundreds reported missing.
A taskforce has been set up to investigate the cause of the fire, which broke out on Wednesday afternoon at the Wang Fuk Court residential complex in Tai Po, in the northern New Territories. The complex is made up of eight 31-storey towers containing about 2,000 flats, which house about 4,800 people.
Authorities said early on Thursday that three men aged between 52 and 68 had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter connected to the fire.
The city’s leader, John Lee, said in the early hours of Thursday morning that the fire was “coming under control”.
Authorities declared the incident a five-alarm fire, the highest emergency rating, and at least 128 fire engines and almost 800 firefighters were dispatched to the scene. Roads including major highways near the towers have been closed.
Taiwan plans extra $40bn in defence spending to counter China’s ‘intensifying’ threats.
The Guardian
Beijing’s threats to Taiwan are “intensifying” and its preparations to invade are speeding up, Taiwan’s government has said while announcing a $40bn special defence budget and a swathe of measures to counter Chinese attacks.
The Taiwan president, Lai Ching-te, said there was “no room for compromise on national security”, and he was committed to boosting Taiwan’s defences in conjunction with US support.
“This is not an ideological struggle, nor a ‘unification vs independence’ debate, but a struggle to defend ‘democratic Taiwan’ and refuse to submit to being ‘China’s Taiwan’.”
Lai and defence minister, Wellington Koo, announced the spending bump – an increase of at least $8bn on what had previously been flagged – on Wednesday after a briefing from the national security council.
He said Chinese authorities had escalated military harassment, international pressure, and propaganda, as well as espionage and infiltration inside Taiwan.
Jakarta overtakes Tokyo as world’s most populous city, according to UN.
The Guardian
Jakarta has overtaken Tokyo as the world’s most populous city, according to a UN study that uses new criteria to give a more accurate picture of the rapid urbanisation driving the growth of megacities.
The Indonesian capital is home to 42 million people, according to an estimate by the population division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs in its World Urbanisation Prospects 2025 report published this month.
Jakarta is followed by the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka with 37 million people. With a population of 33 million, Tokyo – defined in the study as a megalopolis that includes three neighbouring prefectures – slipped to third place. That contrasts dramatically with the UN’s previous report in 2018, which placed the Japanese capital top with a population of 37 million.
The shift in rankings is the result of new methodology that is more consistent in the way it categorises cities, towns and rural areas, according to UN officials.
‘Persistent, corrosive’: IMF blames corruption for Pakistan’s economic crisis; cites policy for elites.
Times of India
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that persistent corruption and “state capture” in Pakistan are at the root of its ongoing economic crisis, where public policy is manipulated to benefit a narrow circle of political and business elites.
The findings are part of the Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA), finalised in November 2025 and requested by the Pakistani government. The 186-page report paints a grim picture of dysfunctional institutions unable to enforce the rule of law or safeguard public resources, reported Aljazeera
According to the IMF, corruption in Pakistan is “persistent and corrosive”, distorting markets, eroding public trust, and undermining fiscal stability.
The report warns that without dismantling structures of “elite privilege”, economic stagnation will continue.“Failure of implementation [of laws and principles of accountability] gives vested interests too often free rein and addressing this must be at the core of efforts for economic reform,” said Stefan Dercon, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford.
UN slams 'meagre' COP results, 'fatal inaction' of leaders.
Times of India
GENEVA: The UN rights chief lamented Monday the "meagre results" at the COP30 climate summit, warning that the "fatal inaction" of leaders might one day be considered a crime against humanity.Nations sealed a modest agreement at the UN climate summit in the Brazilian Amazon on Saturday as many countries swallowed weaker terms on a fossil fuel phaseout to preserve unity.
The agreement calls on countries to voluntarily "accelerate" their climate action, but only with an implicit nod to phasing out fossil fuels.
In an address to the UN's business and human rights forum in Geneva, UN rights chief Volker Turk warned that the "meagre results of COP30 in Belem" illustrated how "corporate power imbalances ... play out in the climate emergency".
"The fossil fuel industry is generating massive profits while devastating some of the poorest communities and countries in the world," he said. "There needs to be proper accountability for this injustice, and for all other harms related to climate chaos."
If he’s serious, they’d better take some notes from the Quakers about premarital counseling.
One spouse for life: Vatican issues new decree under Pope Leo XIV; what it says.
Times of India
The Vatican on Tuesday issued a new decree, approved by Pope Leo XIV, reaffirming that Catholics should marry only one spouse for life. It also instructs the faithful not to engage in multiple intimate relationships.
Released by the Vatican’s top doctrinal office, the document says marriage must remain a lifelong, exclusive partnership between one man and one woman, a principle binding for all 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.
The decree strongly criticises polygamy, highlighting that the practice persists in some African communities, including among Church members. It stresses that true marriage requires a deep, complete bond that “cannot be shared with others,” according to the Reuters.
“Every authentic marriage is a unity composed of two individuals, which requires such an intimate and totalising relationship that it cannot be shared with others,” the decree stated.
It added that exclusivity is essential because both partners have “the same dignity and the same rights”.
China building nuke-proof floating island: Mega project has 2028 deadline; what will it be used for?
Times of India
China has reportedly begun constructing a massive floating artificial island designed to withstand a nuclear strike, a project that signals a major escalation in the global race for maritime power.
Chinese state-linked researchers describe the structure as a new “mega science infrastructure,” underscoring Beijing’s push to expand its strategic capabilities at sea.
The 78,000-tonne semi-submersible twin-hull platform is described as the world’s first mobile, self-sustaining artificial island.“We’re racing to complete the design and construction, aiming for operational status by 2028,” Lin Zhongqin, an academician leading the project, was quoted as saying in an interview with Economic Information Daily in April last year.
'Taking total control': Military seizes power in Guinea-Bissau; electoral process suspended, borders closed.
Times of India
Military officers in Guinea-Bissau announced on Wednesday they are taking "total control" of the country while suspending its electoral process and closing its borders, just three days after the poverty-stricken west African nation held legislative and presidential elections.
The officers made the announcement by reading a statement at the army headquarters in the capital, Bissau, news agency AFP reported.Earlier in the day, gunfire was heard near the presidential palace as men in military uniform took over the main road leading to the building.
Since declaring independence from Portugal in 1973, Guinea-Bissau has endured four coups, along with several failed attempts.
Africa's solar power revolution driven by China's investment.
Times of India
Solar power is widely recognized as an excellent solution for Africa. Sunlight is abundant, economies crave reliable power sources, and the technology is becoming massively cheap.
According to 2024 data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), solar ranks among the cheapest energy sources worldwide, costing just $0.044 (€0.03) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) after prices for solar photovoltaic (PV) modules dropped by 90% in only 13 years.
Africa has so far been a small solar power player. The entire continent accounts for little more than 18 gigawatts (GW) in installed capacity, which translates to just 1% of global solar PV. This is in part due to a lack of investment capital and preexisting grid infrastructure.Now, the tides appear to be finally turning.
Stuck in Gaza’s limbo: Palestinians struggle to live amid Israel’s attacks,
Al Jazeera
Gaza City – Near a burned-out car that had been targeted in front of their home, Faiq Ajour stood with other family members cleaning up scattered debris and shattered glass.
Faiq had been on his way to buy a few items from a nearby vegetable stall when the Israeli strike hit on Saturday.
“I survived by a miracle. I had just crossed the street,” he told Al Jazeera. The Palestinian described his shock – and his fear that it was his house that had been hit by the Israeli attack.
That wasn’t the case, and as he ran back towards the scene, he found his family, physically unharmed. But his three young daughters shook with fear, worried that Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – which was supposed to have been suspended after the introduction of a ceasefire in October – had returned.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza since that ceasefire began, accusing the Palestinian group Hamas of ceasefire violations. Hamas denies that, and Palestinians point out that it is Israel that has used overwhelming force since the ceasefire began, violating it 500 times, and killing more than 342 civilians, including 67 children.
Berlin shutdown of pro-Palestine conference was unlawful, court rules.
Al Jazeera
Berlin, Germany – A Berlin court ruled on Wednesday that authorities in Berlin who shut down a pro-Palestine conference soon after it began acted unlawfully.
Police on April 12, 2024, cracked down on the Palestine Congress, a forum of solidarity activists and human rights experts who were gathering to discuss Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Germany’s alleged complicity, earning a wave of criticism from civil society groups.
“The dissolution and prohibition of the assembly were deemed disproportionate,” the panel of judges of the Berlin Administrative Court ruled.
The defendant, the State of Berlin, had argued the police were right to act preemptively as they predicted criminal statements would be made at the conference, specifically incitement to hatred, dissemination of propaganda or use of symbols of unconstitutional and “terrorist” organisations.
According to the court on Wednesday, police found “no evidence of any criminal offences related to public expression”.
Aftermath of Homs killings may mark turning point for Syria’s government.
Al Jazeera
The killing of a Bedouin couple just south of Syria’s third largest city Homs threatened to spark another round of sectarian clashes in the country this week.
The couple, found dead on Sunday, were from the prominent Sunni Bani Khaled tribe. On the walls next to their bodies, their apparent murderers had scrawled sectarian slogans.
Homs, a city known for its diverse religious makeup, was on edge. Tribal members mobilised and reportedly began shooting at homes in Alawite-majority neighbourhoods. And on Tuesday, large protests called for by an Alawite religious leader took place in the religious minority’s traditional heartlands in Latakia and Tartous.
But, so far, Syria has avoided another outbreak of sectarian violence, unlike a number of occasions – such as in the coastal areas in March and again in Suwayda in July – in the almost one year since the fall of ex-President Bashar al-Assad. Security forces from the Minister of Interior and Defence deployed to the area and, in tandem with some tribal leaders, calmed the situation. A curfew was imposed by Syrian authorities.
India-China in new spat over Arunachal Pradesh: What’s it all about?
Al Jazeera
India and China are locked in a war of words after a months-long period of calm in their relationship over the alleged harassment of a woman from India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh by Chinese authorities.
China claims the territory of Arunachal Pradesh and calls the region southern Tibet, or Zangnan.
What happened?
Prema Wangjom Thongdok was travelling on her Indian passport from the United Kingdom, where she lives, to Japan on Friday. She stopped at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in China for what was supposed to be a three-hour layover.
Thongdok alleged that Shanghai airport authorities instead detained and harassed her for 18 hours because her passport mentioned her place of birth as Arunachal Pradesh.
She added that the Chinese authorities at the airport said her Indian passport was “invalid”, claiming that Arunachal Pradesh was actually part of China.
“I had actually gone past the immigration gate. It was e-gate, so I put my passport through and went to the security gates,” Thongdok told the India Today news magazine over videolink from Thailand’s capital, Bangkok.
“One of the officials came and started screaming, ‘India! India!’ with my name and singled me out,” she added.
China blocks ByteDance from Nvidia chip use: Report.
Al Jazeera
Chinese regulators have barred TikTok-owner ByteDance from deploying Nvidia chips in new data centres.
The tech publication The Information first reported the development on Wednesday, citing two company employees.
ByteDance bought more Nvidia chips than any other Chinese firm in 2025 as it raced to secure computing power for its billion-plus users amid concerns the United States could curb supply, according to the report.
The reported ban underscores Beijing’s efforts to reduce reliance on US technology, a campaign that has intensified as Washington tightens curbs on exports of advanced semiconductors to China.
In August, Chinese regulators asked local firms to halt new orders of Nvidia AI chips and have since pushed companies to adopt homegrown processors, Bloomberg reported, citing people close to Chinese tech regulators.
“The regulatory landscape does not allow us to offer a competitive data centre GPU in China, leaving that massive market to our rapidly growing foreign competitors,” a Nvidia spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.
EU rethinks UAE trade deal over alleged arms sales to Sudan.
Deutsche Welle
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) meeting in Strasbourg, France, this week are considering whether to demand a complete halt to discussions on an EU free trade deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), following allegations the country is sending European-made weapons to militia forces in Sudan.
This follows a UN expert panel investigating
the discovery of European-manufactured weapons in a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) supply convoy, as well as a report
by the human rights watchdog Amnesty International that the RSF paramilitary is receiving European arms through resales via the UAE.
"We will call on the European Commission to stop the trade negotiations with the UAE for as long as we see that weapons are going through the UAE to the RSF," Marit Maij, a Dutch MEP from the socialist group, told DW.
The RSF is accused of perpetrating extensive atrocities in Sudan, like using rape and starvation as a weapon of war, especially during the recent siege on the western city of el-Fasher. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has recently taken up investigations to determine whether these acts constitute war crimes.
The Emirati government has repeatedly denied claims it is forwarding European weapons to Sudan — which would amount to a serious breach of the UN arms embargo on Sudan — but did not respond to DW's request for comment for this article.
Settler violence in occupied West Bank hits new high.
DW
As israeli settler violence continues to spiral in the occupied West Bank, a group known as the "Hilltop Youth" has attacked a Bedouin community near Mukhmas, setting homes ablaze. They also injured Israeli activists who were present to support the Palestinians.
"They hit me from both sides with sticks and stones," recalled Lisa, an activist with the Israeli NGO Torat Zedek. "I could feel blood running down my neck."
Settler violence in the so-called Area C, where Palestinian farmland lies, is rising, and Israeli authorities rarely intervene.
How the EU seeks to counter China in Africa.
DW
Maria Magdalena and her four children live in a wooden hut in a small settlement on the sandy soil of the Ilha do Cabo peninsula in Angola. From here, she can see cargo ships waiting in endless lines to enter the harbor in the country's capital, Luanda.
Angola is rich in raw materials, but the vast majority of the population lives in poverty.
Magdalena also has a view of the city's skyline but is not following the key summit in the capital's government district on the other side of the bay. It is hard enough for her to organize her daily life.
"I urgently need work. Without work, I cannot feed my children," she said.
Africa and Europe in crisis mode
In Luanda, the African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) held their seventh summit under the theme "promoting peace and prosperity through effective multilateralism." Together, they represent 82 countries with a population of almost 2 billion people.
Pressure has never been this high. "As we all know, uncertainty prevails on the international stage. The established norms of international geopolitics are being challenged," Mahmoud Youssouf, the chair of the AU Commission, said ahead of the conference in a statement
.
US communities fight to save solar and wind energy projects.
DW
Each month, Anh Nguyen shells out nearly $500 (€431) for electricity in Atlanta, Georgia. She's tried everything to cut down on her bills, from spending sweltering summer days at the pool to running the AC only at night. When a federal green energy program promised help, it felt like a lifeline.
"I was counting that it would bring our electricity bills down and could insulate our house from heat," Nguyen told DW. Solar for All was meant to help low- and middle-income families install solar panels. Without it, Nguyen, who founded her own tech company to support small businesses, would struggle to cover the $12,000 to $20,000 in installation costs.
But the mother of two's hopes of cutting her skyrocketing electricity bills with solar panels vanished when US President Donald Trump's administration ended the $7-billion program in August. The move will affect some 900,000 households across the country.
Now, Nguyen is a plaintiff alongside unions, nonprofits, and solar companies in a suit seeking to restore the supports. Meanwhile, a coalition of states has filed a separate lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block the "unlawful termination."
Georgia judge dismisses Trump election interference case.
DW
A judge in the US state of Georgia on Wednesday dismissed the long-running case accusing President Donald Trump and several associates of attempting to overturn his 2020 election defeat in the state.
The decision follows a request from prosecutor Pete Skandalakis, who argued the case would be "unproductive" to pursue.
What did the prosecutor say about the Trump case?
Skandalakis, who replaced disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis earlier this month, wrote: "I recognize that, given the deep political divisions in our country, this decision will not be universally popular." He argued in a 23-page filing that the matters at issue were fundamentally federal, not state, in nature.
He cited Special Counsel Jack Smith's decision in late 2024 to withdraw federal charges against Trump after his return to office, saying: "If Special Counsel Jack Smith, with all the resources of the federal government at his disposal… concluded that prosecution would be fruitless, then I too find that, despite the available evidence, pursuing the prosecution… would be equally unproductive."
Judge Scott McAfee immediately granted the motion to dismiss the proceedings. The ruling effectively ends what was once one of four criminal prosecutions involving Trump. Only one — the New York hush-money case related to a payment to a porn star during the 2016 campaign — proceeded to trial, resulting in a conviction that Trump is now seeking to overturn.
Science Chaser
Scientists discover ancient magnetic fossils of unknown creature with internal GPS.
Space.com
Animals like birds and sea turtles navigate using a "biological GPS" called magnetoreception. We now actually know that many animals use this method to connect with Earth's magnetic field so they know where to go — but scientists don't really understand how the whole process works yet.
As such, researchers at Cambridge University and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have been studying tiny ancient fossils littering ocean floors to learn more about magnetoreception. And sure enough, the team says they've discovered that these "magnetofossils" indeed exhibit magnetoreception. Because they found the magnetofossils in sediments that date back 97 million years, their work could be the first time we've had direct evidence that animals have been navigating the world like this for a very long time.
"Whatever creature made these magnetofossils, we now know it was most likely capable of accurate navigation," Rich Harrison of Cambridge’s Earth Sciences Dept., and research co-leader, said in a statement.
Modern life explains why people in Chile are taller and have larger heads than their ancestors.
Phys.org
Modern Chileans are significantly taller and have larger heads than their ancestors. That's the central finding of new research looking at how intracranial volume (ICV) has changed across thousands of years in northern Chile. ICV is the space inside the skull that houses the brain, which scientists use to estimate brain size.
Very little is known about how diet, environment and genetics have affected head size and stature in South American populations. So researchers aimed to fill this knowledge gap by conducting a direct comparison of three distinct populations across several millennia. These were the Chinchorro, ancient hunter-gatherers who lived in Chile's Atacama Desert from around 7,500 to 3,500 years ago, pre-Hispanic farmers who later adopted agriculture and modern Chileans.
Scanning old heads
In their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the scientists conducted CT (computed tomography) scans of 68 mummified Chinchorro skulls and nine farmers. These scans were then compared to scans of 83 modern Chileans.
The researchers also created 3D models of the inside of the skulls to calculate the ICV accurately. The height of these ancient people was calculated by examining their long bones, specifically the femurs and tibias. To see if diet was a major driver of biological changes, the research team analyzed chemical traces of food in the old bones.
Interlaced origami structure enables compact storage and high-strength robotic deployment.
Phys.org
Researchers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, have applied the principle of interlacing to an origami-inspired structure and developed a "Foldable-and-Rollable corruGated Structure (FoRoGated-Structure)" that can be smoothly folded and rolled up for compact storage while maintaining very high strength when deployed. The study was published in the journal Science Robotics on November 26.
The team was led by Professor Kyu-Jin Cho—Director of the Human-Centered Soft Robotics Research Center and a founding member of the SNU Robotics Institute (SNU RI).
How the structure achieves compactness and strength
Rolling a structure around a central hub—similar to how a tape measure is stored—is an effective way to achieve compact storage. In such mechanisms, the structure typically has a flat cross-section in the storage phase, allowing it to wrap smoothly around the hub, and then transforms into a corrugated cross-section in the deployed phase to suppress bending and sagging
Innovative materials boost stretchable digital displays' performance.
Phys.org
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) power the high-end screens of our digital world, from TVs and phones to laptops and game consoles.
If those displays could stretch to cover any 3D or irregular surfaces, the doors would be open for technologies like wearable electronics, medical implants and humanoid robots that integrate better with or mimic the soft human body.
"Displays are the intuitive application, but a stretchable OLED can also be used as the light source for monitoring, detection and diagnosis devices for diabetes, cancers, heart conditions and other major health problems," said Wei Liu, a former postdoctoral researcher in the lab of University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) Assoc. Prof. Sihong Wang.
First-of-its-kind 3D model lets you explore Easter Island statues up close.
Phys.org
Located in the middle of the South Pacific, thousands of miles from the nearest continent, Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth. To visit it and marvel at the quarries where its iconic moai statues were created is a luxury few get to experience—until now.
You can now explore Rano Raraku, one of the major quarries on Easter Island, from the comfort of your home. A research team including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has created the first-ever high-resolution 3D model of the quarry, providing people worldwide with a glimpse of the island, including almost 1,000 of its iconic moai statues.
"As an archaeologist, the quarry is like the archaeological Disneyland," said Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo and lead author of a new paper published in PLOS One. "It has everything you can possibly imagine about moai construction, because that's where they did most of the construction. It's always been this treasure of information and cultural heritage, but it's remarkably underdocumented."
The new model allows visitors to zoom in and pan across various features of the quarry, both high and low, offering views that you wouldn't be able to see even if you did make your way to Rapa Nui. The quarry itself is located in a volcanic crater that is too steep and rugged to safely traverse.
Cleveland's famous sea monster gets a scientific update.
About 360 million years ago, the shallow sea above present-day Cleveland was home to a fearsome apex predator: Dunkleosteus terrelli. This 14-foot armored fish ruled the Late Devonian seas with razor-sharp bone blades instead of teeth, making it among the largest and most ferocious arthrodires—an extinct group of shark-like fishes covered in bony armor across their head and torso.
Since its discovery in the 1860s, Dunkleosteus has captivated scientists and the public alike, becoming one of the most recognizable prehistoric animals. Casts of its bony-plated skull and imposing mouthparts can be seen on display in museums around the world. Despite its fame, this ancient predator has remained scientifically neglected for nearly a century.
Now an international team of researchers led by Case Western Reserve University has published a detailed study of Dunkleosteus in The Anatomical Record, revealing a new understanding of the ancient armored predator.
Despite being the literal "poster child" for the arthrodire group, Dunkleosteus actually was not like most of its kin, and was, in fact, a bit of an oddball.
Flightless ancestor shows brain evolution in pterosaurs and birds took different paths.
Flight is a rare skill in the animal world. Among vertebrates, it evolved only three times: in bats, birds, and the long-extinct pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were the pioneers, taking to the skies more than 220 million years ago, long before early bird relatives such as Archaeopteryx appeared, around 150 million years ago. While scientists have a detailed fossil record that sheds light on how birds' brains evolved for flight, the same story for pterosaurs has been far less clear. Until now.
In a new study published in Current Biology, an international team now reveals how pterosaurs evolved the neurological structures required for powered flight.
"The breakthrough was the discovery of an ancient pterosaur relative, a small lagerpetid archosaur named Ixalerpeton from 233-million-year-old Triassic rocks in Brazil," said Mario Bronzati, an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Tubingen in Germany and lead author of the study.
"We've had abundant information about early birds and knew they inherited their basic brain layout from their theropod dinosaur ancestors," added co-author Lawrence Witmer, professor of anatomy at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. "But pterosaur brains seemed to appear out of nowhere. Now, with our first glimpse of an early pterosaur relative, we see that pterosaurs essentially built their own 'flight computers' from scratch."
Sorry I’m running a tad behind, but the turkey smells sooo good!
Hope everyone has a great holiday.
