EverythingScience

🛰️Pandora’s near-infrared detector is a spare developed for NASAWebb, which is THE observatory most sensitive to exoplanet atmospheres. Pandora will observe its targets for 24 hours, something flagship missions like Webb, which are in high demand, cannot regularly do. Source: RT@NASAKennedy @EverythingScience

Himalayan winters are seeing less snowfall as more ice melts Source:BBC @EverythingScience

NASA to Return SpaceX Crew Ahead of Schedule On Jan. 8th, 2026, NASA announced its decision to return the SpaceX Crew-11 mission to Earth from the International Space Station earlier than originally planned. This unprecedented move came after one of the crew members reportedly experienced a health-related issue that required full medical services. While the crew member (who has not been identified for privacy reasons) was reported to be in stable condition, NASA will go ahead with the early return mission. According to the latest updates, the Crew-11 mission team will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Thursday, Jan.15th. at approximately 3:40 a.m. EST (Jan. 14th, 12:40 pm PST). The crew consists of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, who will splash down off the coast of California at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 15th. NASA is also working with SpaceX and international partners to review launch options for the Crew-12 mission. This will leave the station in the hands of the remaining three flight engineers of Expedition 74, consisting of NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev. Source:Universe Today @EverythingScience

Scientists Find Prehistoric Brain Circuit Still Controls Vision Your ability to notice what matters visually comes from an ancient brain system over 500 million years old. The brain can make sense of the visual world even without relying on its most advanced outer layer, the cortex. A new study published in PLOS Biology shows that a far older brain structure, known as the superior colliculus, has the neural machinery needed to carry out essential visual computations. These processes allow the brain to separate objects from their background and determine which visual signals matter most in a given space. The research also shows that these ancient circuits, which exist in all vertebrate brains, can independently produce center surround interactions. This basic visual principle helps the brain detect contrast, edges, and visually important features in the environment. Source:SciTechDaily @EverythingScience

Scientists Solve the Mystery of When Earth’s Oldest Animals Evolved Sponges are considered some of the oldest animals on Earth, yet researchers have struggled to pin down when they first appeared. Studies of DNA from modern sponges, together with chemical clues preserved in ancient rocks, point to an origin at least 650 million years ago. The research was recently published in Science Advances. That early date has sparked debate because it comes at least 100 million years before the earliest known sponge fossils. An international research team led by Dr. M. Eleonora Rossi of the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences set out to resolve this mismatch by focusing on how sponge skeletons evolved. Source:SciTechDaily @EverythingScience

Whether you have a full seasonal rotation or just layer up, changing clothes for the cold is natural for us - but did you know that some animals do this too? See how and why some species go white in the winter in this week’s Surprising Science! ❄️ Source: @NHM_London @EverythingScience

Scientists Made This Lung-on-a-Chip Breathe. Then They Gave It TB. Tuberculosis has plagued humanity for thousands of years, and despite medical advances that can now help us prevent and cure it, the ancient bacterial disease still claims more human lives per year than any other infectious pathogen. In a new study, researchers unveil a device meant to demystify the early stages of TB, including a peculiar delay that often precedes the onset of symptoms. Their model could also reveal how genetic variations in patients lead to varying effects of TB, with potentially broad implications for personalized medicine. About a quarter of our species is infected with TB bacteria, and while only a fraction of those people will become sick, that still amounts to more than 10 million new cases – and more than 1 million deaths – per year worldwide. TB progresses slowly, with symptoms often taking months to appear. To learn more about this lag, the authors focused on tiny air sacs in the lungs, pulmonary alveoli, which host pivotal confrontations between immune cells and bacteria. Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience

Scientists Can Now Watch Plants “Breathe” in Real Time Source:SciTechDaily @EverythingScience

Your Bedroom May Be Too Hot for a Healthy Heart, Researchers Warn Source:SciTechDaily @EverythingScience

How to change your camera battery in weightlessness. Source: @astro_Pettit @EverythingScience

Can Drinking Your Pee Save Your Life in an Emergency? Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience

Ocean temperatures hit another record high in 2025 The world's oceans absorbed a record amount of heat in 2025, an international team of scientists said Friday, further priming conditions for sea level rise, violent storms, and coral death. The heat that has accumulated in the oceans last year increased by approximately 23 zettajoules—an amount equivalent to nearly four decades of global primary energy consumption. This finding—published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences—was the highest reading of any year since modern record keeping began in the early 1950s, researchers said. To derive these calculations, more than 50 scientists from 31 research institutions used multiple sources including a thousands-strong fleet of floating robots that track ocean changes to depths of 2,000 meters. Peering into the depths, rather than fluctuations at the surface, provides a better indicator of how oceans are responding to "sustained pressure" from humanity's emissions, said study co-author Karina von Schuckmann. Source:Phys.org @EverythingScience