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Scientists have finally solved a decades-old puzzle surrounding the origins of the striking turquoise blue in one of Jackson Pollock’s masterpieces. They confirmed that the abstract expressionist used a synthetic pigment known as manganese blue. The breakthrough came from a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers scraped samples of the blue paint from Pollock’s “Number 1A, 1948”, a nearly 9-foot-wide canvas now displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and analyzed them using lasers to measure molecular vibrations. The process produced a unique chemical fingerprint, identifying the pigment as manganese blue—the first confirmed evidence of Pollock using it. The painting, which features Pollock’s trademark drips and splatters, also bears his handprints near the top. While scientists had previously identified the reds and yellows on the canvas, the source of the vivid turquoise remained elusive until now. “It’s really interesting to understand where some striking color comes from on a molecular level,” said study co-author Edward Solomon of Stanford University. Manganese blue, once popular among artists and even used to tint swimming pool cement, was phased out in the 1990s over environmental concerns. Earlier research had suggested Pollock’s turquoise could be manganese blue, but the new study confirms it directly from canvas samples. Beyond identification, researchers examined the pigment’s chemical structure to understand how it produces such a vibrant hue. Experts say these studies not only preserve historic works but also help detect forgeries. Because Pollock often poured paint directly onto canvas instead of mixing on a palette, scientists were able to access more precise samples for testing. “I actually see a lot of similarities between the way we worked and the way that Jackson Pollock worked on the painting,” said Abed Haddad, co-author and assistant conservation scientist at MoMA. Pollock, often described as chaotic, insisted his method was deliberate and structured—a view echoed by researchers who finally decoded one of the artist’s colorful mysteries.

A groundbreaking clinical trial in Shanghai has enabled a Chinese man, who lost all four limbs in an electrical accident 13 years ago, to play chess and racing games using only his thoughts. This became possible after researchers implanted a brain-computer interface (BCI) directly into his brain — marking China's first human trial of such invasive technology. The trial is being conducted by scientists from the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Huashan Hospital of Fudan University. With this development, China becomes the second country after the United States to push invasive BCI into the clinical stage. Implanted in March 2025, the device has so far worked without complications such as infections or electrode malfunctions, researchers confirmed. They hope the technology could gain regulatory approval by 2028 and significantly improve life quality for individuals with spinal cord injuries, double-arm amputations, or neurodegenerative conditions like ALS. Japan trials ‘Universal Artificial Blood’ that could revolutionise emergency care Brain-computer interfaces link the brain directly to external systems, enabling new forms of communication and control. CEBSIT Deputy Director Shi Yongyong said this technology not only helps decode how the brain processes information but also opens up new methods for treating neurological disorders and advancing human-machine interaction. Historically, BCI research involved bulky machines. But shrinking these systems while maintaining precision has proven difficult, said Pu Muming, an academician with the CAS. The current breakthrough uses ultra-thin, flexible electrodes — just 1% the diameter of a human hair — which cause minimal disruption to brain tissue, explained Zhao Zhengtuo, the lead researcher. These electrodes can capture detailed and stable neural signals over long periods and have already been tested in rodents, monkeys, and now humans. The entire BCI implant is coin-sized — just 26 mm wide and under 6 mm thick — roughly half the size of a similar device from Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Zhao noted. According to Li Xue, another lead researcher, the system can decode brain signals and convert them into control commands in mere milliseconds, faster than the blink of an eye. Safety and performance were first confirmed in macaque monkeys, with stable operation and even successful device replacement during tests. The surgical method used for implantation is minimally invasive, ensuring low risk and quick recovery. Neurosurgeon Lu Junfeng, who led the operation, said precision was critical. His team used advanced navigation to place the electrodes accurately within the motor cortex, down to the millimeter. There are three main types of BCI: non-invasive (external), semi-invasive (partially internal), and invasive (fully implanted). Lu used a football game analogy to explain the differences: non-invasive devices are like microphones outside a stadium — you can hear the crowd but not the match clearly. Semi-invasive devices offer a better view, like hanging mics inside the stadium. Invasive ones, like the one used here, are like having mics on players — giving precise, real-time information. Arizona confirms measles outbreak in Navajo County Looking ahead, the team plans to enable the patient to operate a robotic arm for daily tasks like holding a cup. They also aim to expand capabilities by integrating more complex tools like robotic pets and smart robots to enhance mobility and independence.

A new study has found that domestic cats can distinguish between the scent of their owner and that of a stranger. Conducted by Tokyo University of Agriculture, the research revealed that cats spent noticeably more time sniffing tubes containing the scent of unfamiliar individuals than those with their owner's odour. According to the researchers, this indicates that cats are capable of telling the difference between familiar and unfamiliar humans based on smell. However, it remains uncertain whether they can identify specific individuals. While it is well established that cats use their keen sense of smell to recognise and interact with other cats, this study is among the first to explore whether they can also differentiate between people by scent. Previous research has shown that cats can recognise humans by their voice, follow a person’s gaze to locate food, and adjust their behaviour based on emotions detected through scent. In a new study published on Wednesday, researchers tested 30 cats using plastic tubes containing three types of swabs: one with the owner's scent, one with the scent of a stranger of the same sex as the owner, and one clean swab with no scent. The scented swabs had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear, and between the toes of the owner or the unfamiliar person. Astronomers discover strange new celestial object in Milky Way galaxy The findings revealed that cats spent significantly more time sniffing the swabs with the stranger’s scent than those with the owner's scent or the clean swab. This suggests cats can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar human smells, the researchers said. This behaviour aligns with previous observations that cats, especially weaned kittens, tend to sniff unfamiliar female cats longer than their mothers. However, the researchers emphasized that the results do not confirm whether cats can identify specific individuals like their owners. Study co-author Hidehiko Uchiyama noted that since the experiment only involved familiar and unfamiliar scents, further research is needed. He explained that future behavioural tests using odours from multiple familiar people would be required to determine if cats show unique reactions specifically to their owner's scent. Serenella d'Ingeo, a researcher from the University of Bari who was not involved in the study but has previously researched how cats respond to human scents, said the findings show that cats react differently to familiar and unfamiliar odours. However, she cautioned that the motivations behind their reactions remain unclear. “We don't know how the animal felt during the sniffing... We don't know, for instance, whether the animal was relaxed or tense,” she explained. D’Ingeo also noted that since the odour samples were presented by the cats’ own owners, who naturally contribute their scent to the environment, this might have heightened the cats' interest in the unfamiliar odours. “In that situation, owners present not only their visual presence but also their odour,” she said. “So of course if they present other odours that are different from their personal one, in a way they engage more the cat.” Why Ginger cats are special? genetic secret uncovered The authors of the study concluded that cats use their sense of smell to recognise humans. They observed that after sniffing the tubes, cats often rubbed their faces against them—a typical scent-marking behaviour. This suggests that sniffing might be an exploratory action that comes before marking something with their own scent. However, the researchers stressed that this link needs further exploration, along with the question of whether cats are truly able to recognise a specific individual based solely on their scent.

Thanks to a mouse watching clips from “The Matrix,” scientists have created the largest functional map of a brain to date – a diagram of the wiring connecting 84,000 neurons as they fire off messages. Using a piece of that mouse’s brain about the size of a poppy seed, the researchers identified those neurons and traced how they communicated via branch-like fibers through a surprising 500 million junctions called synapses. The massive dataset, published Wednesday by the journal Nature, marks a step toward unraveling the mystery of how our brains work. The data, assembled in a 3D reconstruction colored to delineate different brain circuitry, is open to scientists worldwide for additional research – and for the simply curious to take a peek. “It definitely inspires a sense of awe, just like looking at pictures of the galaxies,” said Forrest Collman of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, one of the project’s leading researchers. “You get a sense of how complicated you are. We’re looking at one tiny part ... of a mouse’s brain and the beauty and complexity that you can see in these actual neurons and the hundreds of millions of connections between them.” How we think, feel, see, talk and move are due to neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain – how they’re activated and send messages to each other. Scientists have long known those signals move from one neuron along fibers called axons and dendrites, using synapses to jump to the next neuron. But there’s less known about the networks of neurons that perform certain tasks and how disruptions of that wiring could play a role in Alzheimer's, autism or other disorders. “You can make a thousand hypotheses about how brain cells might do their job but you can’t test those hypotheses unless you know perhaps the most fundamental thing – how are those cells wired together,” said Allen Institute scientist Clay Reid, who helped pioneer electron microscopy to study neural connections. With the new project, a global team of more than 150 researchers mapped neural connections that Collman compares to tangled pieces of spaghetti winding through part of the mouse brain responsible for vision. The first step: Show a mouse video snippets of sci-fi movies, sports, animation and nature. A team at Baylor College of Medicine did just that, using a mouse engineered with a gene that makes its neurons glow when they’re active. The researchers used a laser-powered microscope to record how individual cells in the animal’s visual cortex lit up as they processed the images flashing by. New discoveries in S. Egypt reveals Ramesseum Temple's history Next, scientists at the Allen Institute analyzed that small piece of brain tissue, using a special tool to shave it into more than 25,000 layers, each far thinner than a human hair. With electron microscopes, they took nearly 100 million high-resolution images of those sections, illuminating those spaghetti-like fibers and painstakingly reassembling the data in 3D. Finally, Princeton University scientists used artificial intelligence to trace all that wiring and “paint each of the individual wires a different color so that we can identify them individually,” Collman explained. They estimated that microscopic wiring, if laid out, would measure more than 3 miles (5 kilometers). Importantly, matching up all that anatomy with the activity in the mouse's brain as it watched movies allowed researchers to trace how the circuitry worked. The Princeton researchers also created digital 3D copies of the data that other scientists can use in developing new studies. Could this kind of mapping help scientists eventually find treatments for brain diseases? The researchers call it a foundational step, like how the Human Genome Project that provided the first gene mapping eventually led to gene-based treatments. Mapping a full mouse brain is one next goal. “The technologies developed by this project will give us our first chance to really identify some kind of abnormal pattern of connectivity that gives rise to a disorder,” another of the project's leading researchers, Princeton neuroscientist and computer scientist Sebastian Seung, said in a statement. The work “marks a major leap forwards and offers an invaluable community resource for future discoveries,” wrote Harvard neuroscientists Mariela Petkova and Gregor Schuhknecht, who weren’t involved in the project. The huge and publicly shared data “will help to unravel the complex neural networks underlying cognition and behavior,” they added. The Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks, or MICrONS, consortium was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative and IARPA, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

The work is highly technical, taking place in a setting that resembles a laboratory rather than a museum. A fragment of a glazed roof tile from Beijing’s Forbidden City undergoes analysis in a cutting-edge X-ray diffraction machine, which generates images that are then displayed on computer screens. The fragment being examined has a darkened area on its surface, which restorers seek to identify. Their goal is to enhance the preservation of artifacts in the vast imperial palace, which served as the residence of China’s emperors and the centre of power for centuries. Researchers find potential to delay Alzheimer’s symptoms, but funding delays threaten progress “We want to determine what the black substance is,” said Kang Baoqiang, one of the restorers at the site, now a museum drawing visitors from around the globe. “Whether it originates from atmospheric sediment or is the result of significant internal changes.” A team of approximately 150 workers blends scientific analysis with traditional methods to clean, repair, and restore the museum’s collection of over 1.8 million relics. The collection includes scroll paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, and, somewhat unexpectedly, elaborate antique clocks presented to emperors by early European visitors. In a room down the corridor from the X-ray facility, two restorers meticulously patch holes in a panel of patterned green silk featuring the Chinese character for “longevity,” carefully applying colour in a technique known as “inpainting.” This piece is believed to have been a birthday gift for Empress Dowager Cixi, the influential figure behind the throne in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of the restoration work is painstaking and repetitive, often taking months to complete. “I don’t have grand ambitions about protecting traditional cultural heritage, as some people say,” remarked Wang Nan, one of the restorers. “I simply find satisfaction in the sense of accomplishment when an antique piece is restored.” Now a major tourist attraction in central Beijing, the Forbidden City was named by foreigners during imperial times because access was largely restricted. Officially, it is known as the Palace Museum. During World War II, many of its treasures were swiftly removed to prevent them from falling into the hands of the invading Japanese army. Later, during the civil war that led to the Communist Party’s rise to power in 1949, the defeated Nationalists transported many of the most valuable items to Taiwan, where they are now housed in the National Palace Museum. Since then, Beijing’s Palace Museum has rebuilt its collection. How will the universe end? A changing understanding of dark energy may provide a new answer Restoration techniques have also progressed, noted Qu Feng, head of the museum’s Conservation Department, though traditional methods remain the foundation of their work. “When we restore an antique, we safeguard the cultural values it embodies,” Qu said. “And that is our ultimate objective.”

A European space telescope, launched to investigate the dark universe, has unveiled a wealth of new data on distant galaxies. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency's Euclid observatory released images and other information, offering a glimpse of three cosmic regions that the mission will explore in greater detail. These observations aim to map the shapes and positions of galaxies billions of light years away, with a light year equating to nearly 6 trillion miles. Blue ghost lander captures stunning Lunar sunset before falling silent Launched in 2023 from Florida, the observatory is working on creating a cosmic map to gather insights into the workings of our expanding universe and the roles of dark energy and dark matter—two mysterious forces that constitute the majority of the universe, yet remain poorly understood. Over the course of six years, the mission aims to capture images of more than 1.5 billion galaxies. NASA’s stranded astronauts finally head home after nine months in space

Just over a day after launching, a SpaceX crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, bringing the replacements for NASA’s two stranded astronauts. The four newcomers — from the U.S., Japan, and Russia — will spend the next few days getting acquainted with the station’s operations from Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Afterward, the two will board their own SpaceX capsule later this week to wrap up an unexpectedly extended mission that began last June. What's Pi Day all about? Math, science, pies and more Wilmore and Williams had anticipated being gone for only a week when they launched on Boeing’s first astronaut flight, but they marked the nine-month milestone earlier this month. The Boeing Starliner capsule faced so many issues that NASA insisted it return empty, leaving its test pilots behind to await a SpaceX lift. Their ride finally arrived in late September, but with a reduced crew of two and two vacant seats reserved for the return journey. Additional delays occurred when their replacements’ brand-new capsule required extensive battery repairs. An older capsule took its place, pushing their return back by a couple of weeks to mid-March. Saturn’s moon count soars: 128 new moons discovered Weather permitting, the SpaceX capsule carrying Wilmore, Williams, and two other astronauts will undock from the space station no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida's coast.

Math enthusiasts around the world, from college students to rocket scientists, celebrate Pi Day, which is March 14 or 3/14 — the first three digits of an infinite number with many practical uses. Many people will mark the day with a slice of pie — sweet, savory or even pizza. Simply put, pi is a mathematical constant that expresses the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It figures into numerous formulas used in physics, astronomy, engineering and other fields, dating back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, Babylon and China. Pi Day itself dates to 1988, when physicist Larry Shaw began celebrations at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. Saturn’s moon count soars: 128 new moons discovered The holiday didn’t really gain national recognition until two decades later. In 2009, Congress designated every March 14 to be the big day — in the hopes of spurring more interest in math and science. Fittingly enough, the day is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. Here’s a little more about the holiday’s origin and how it’s celebrated. What is pi? Pi can calculate the circumference of a circle by measuring the diameter — the distance straight across the circle’s middle — and multiplying that by the 3.14-plus number. It is considered a constant number and it is also infinite, meaning it is mathematically irrational. Long before computers, historic scientists such as Isaac Newton spent many hours calculating decimal places by hand. Today, using sophisticated computers, researchers have come up with trillions of digits for pi, but there is no end. Why is it called pi? It wasn’t given its name until 1706, when Welsh mathematician William Jones began using the Greek symbol for the number. Why that letter? It’s the first Greek letter in the words “periphery” and “perimeter,” and pi is the ratio of a circle’s periphery — or circumference — to its diameter. What are some practical uses? The number is key to accurately pointing an antenna toward a satellite. It helps figure out everything from the size of a massive cylinder needed in refinery equipment to the size of paper rolls used in printers. Pi is also useful in determining the necessary scale of a tank that serves heating and air conditioning systems in buildings of various sizes. NASA's latest space telescope launched to map the sky and study galaxies NASA uses pi on a daily basis. It’s key to calculating orbits, the positions of planets and other celestial bodies, elements of rocket propulsion, spacecraft communication and even the correct deployment of parachutes when a vehicle splashes down on Earth or lands on Mars. Using just nine digits of pi, scientists can calculate the Earth’s circumference so accurately it errs by only about a quarter of an inch (0.6 centimeters) for every 25,000 miles (about 40,000 kilometers). It's not just math, though Every year the San Francisco museum that coined the holiday organizes events, including a parade around a circular plaque, called the Pi Shrine, 3.14 times — and then, of course, festivities with lots of pie. Across the country, many events now take place on college campuses. At Florida Atlantic University in Jupiter, Florida, students in the Jupiter Mathematics Club are hosting a Pi Day Extravaganza with a raffle to hit math professors with a pie, along with a contest for who can memorize the most digits of pi. Restaurants across the country, including some pizza chains, also offer $3.14 specials on Pi Day. NASA holds its annual Pi Day Challenge online, offering plenty of games and puzzles, some directly from the space agency’s own playbook, such as calculating the orbit of an asteroid or the distance a moon rover would need to travel each day to survey a certain lunar area. What about Einstein? Possibly the world’s best-known scientist, Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Germany. The infinite number of pi was used in many of his breakthrough theories and now Pi Day gives the world another reason to celebrate his achievements. In a bit of math symmetry, famed physicist Stephen Hawking died on March 14, 2018, at age 76. Still, pi is not a perfect number. He once had this to say: “One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist. Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.”

Scientists have detected cosmic waves that sound like birds chirping in an unexpected place. These bursts of plasma, called chorus waves, ripple at the same frequency as human hearing. When converted to audio signals, their sharp notes mimic high-pitched bird calls. Researchers have captured such sounds in space before, but now they have sensed the chirping waves from much farther away: over 62,000 miles (100,000 kilometers) from Earth, where they've never been measured before. “That opens up a lot of new questions about the physics that could be possible in this area,” said Allison Jaynes, a space physicist at the University of Iowa who was not involved with the work. Scientists still aren’t sure how the perturbations happen, but they think Earth’s magnetic field may have something to do with it. The chorus has been picked up on radio antennas for decades, including receivers at an Antarctica research station in the 1960s. And twin spacecraft — NASA's Van Allen Probes — heard the chirps from Earth's radiation belts at a closer distance than the newest detection. Bird flu found in a Georgia commercial flock for the 1st time amid the nationwide outbreak The latest notes were picked up by NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale satellites, launched in 2015 to explore the Earth and sun's magnetic fields. The new research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Chorus waves have also been spotted near other planets including Jupiter and Saturn. They can even produce high-energy electrons capable of scrambling satellite communications. “They are one of the strongest and most significant waves in space,” said study author Chengming Liu from Beihang University in an email. The newfound chorus waves were detected in a region where Earth's magnetic field is stretched out, which scientists didn't expect. That raises fresh questions about how these chirping waves form. “It's very captivating, very compelling,” Jaynes said. “We definitely need to find more of these events.”

New research suggests that Saturn’s rings may be older than they look — possibly as old as the planet. Instead of being a youthful 400 million years old as commonly thought, the icy, shimmering rings could be around 4.5 billion years old just like Saturn, a Japanese-led team reported Monday. The scientists surmise Saturn’s rings may be pristine not because they are young but because they are dirt-resistant. Saturn's rings are long thought to be between 100 million and 400 million years old based on more than a decade of observations by NASA's Cassini spacecraft before its demise in 2017. Images by Cassini showed no evidence of any darkening of the rings by impacting micrometeoroids — space rock particles smaller than a grain of sand — prompting scientists to conclude the rings formed long after the planet. Ancient genes pinpoint when humans and Neanderthals mixed and mingled Through computer modeling, the Institute of Science Tokyo's Ryuki Hyodo and his team demonstrated that micrometeoroids vaporize once slamming into the rings, with little if any dark and dirty residue left behind. They found that the resulting charged particles get sucked toward Saturn or out into space, keeping the rings spotless and challenging the baby rings theory. Their results appear in the journal Nature Geoscience. Hyodo said it's possible Saturn's rings could be somewhere between the two extreme ages — around the halfway mark of 2.25 billion years old. But the solar system was much more chaotic during its formative years with large planetary-type objects migrating and interacting all over the place, just the sort of scenario that would be conducive to producing Saturn's rings. “Considering the solar system’s evolutionary history, it’s more likely that the rings formed closer to" Saturn's earliest times, he said in an email.