In 1906, astronomer and businessman Percival Lowell launched a search for "Planet X," a hypothetical giant planet orbiting the sun beyond Neptune. Lowell was convinced that Planet X existed based on some supposed irregularities he had observed in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. His belief eventually led to the discovery of Pluto in 1930, though scientists later determined that the dwarf planet was too small to have a gravitational impact on Neptune's orbit (let alone Uranus').

Today, the Planet X hypothesis is largely considered to be discredited. However, that hasn't stopped astronomers from looking for planets in the far reaches of the solar system. And according to a new study, they might be out there — only much farther away than Lowell could have predicted.

Observers have drawn a number of conclusions based on a recent series of visits to the site of the Nord Stream pipeline rupture via drone. There's just one problem: all of them seemed to have missed the location of the explosions. After a recent underwater expedition, The Grayzone can now reveal where they went wrong, and what the real blast sites tell us about the worst act of eco-terrorism in history.

On September 26, 2022 and 3 minutes past midnight UTC, a magnitude 1.8 seismic wave struck the Baltic Sea. Finnish and Norwegian researchers placed the epicenter just southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. 17 hours later, another 2.3 magnitude event occurred. The Swiss-based operator of the Nord Stream pipelines, which once fed huge quantities of Russian natural gas to Germany, reported a sudden drop in pressure from 105 to 7 bar in one of Nord Stream 2's two offshore lines.

Overhead, aircraft filmed as an estimated 75,000 - 230,000 tons of methane bubbled up from the Baltic. Earthquake researchers said the force of the man-made blast was equivalent to 700 kg of TNT.

But what if the seismic readings they observed were not a result of the explosion itself, but rather, the subsequent force of the pipeline rapidly depressurizing?

We've just identified a brand new isotope of the rarest element in our planet's crust.

With 85 protons and 105 neutrons, ¹⁹⁰astatine is the lightest isotope of astatine discovered yet, and could help physicists better understand the process of alpha decay, and the structure and limitations of atomic nuclei.

"The studies of new nuclei are important for understanding the structure of atomic nuclei and the limits of known matter," says physicist Henna Kokkonen of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

Astatine is highly radioactive, and extremely unstable. It only occurs in nature as a sort of stepping stone, a product of the decay of heavier elements that in turn rapidly decays into lighter elements. The most stable isotope of astatine is ²¹⁰astatine, which has a half-life of just over 8 hours; most of its isotopes have half-lives less than a few seconds.

AUSTIN, Texas — Thor, the legendary Norse god from the mythological city of Asgard, is not alone. According to groundbreaking research published in the journal Nature, we humans — along with eagles, starfish, daisies and every complex organism on Earth — are, in a sense, Asgardians.

Analyzing the genomes of hundreds of different microbes called archaea, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and other institutions have discovered that eukaryotes — complex life forms with nuclei in their cells, including all the world's plants, animals, insects and fungi — trace their roots to a common Asgard archaean ancestor. That means eukaryotes are, in the parlance of evolutionary biologists, a "well-nested clade" within Asgard archaea, similar to how birds are one of several groups within a larger group called dinosaurs, sharing a common ancestor. The team has found that all eukaryotes share a common ancestor among the Asgards.

No fossils of eukaryotes have been found from farther back than about 2 billion years ago, suggesting that before that, only various types of microbes existed.

"So, what events led microbes to evolve into eukaryotes?" said Brett Baker, UT Austin associate professor of integrative biology and marine science. "That's a big question. Having this common ancestor is a big step in understanding that."

Led by Thijs Ettema of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the research team identified the closest microbial relative to all complex life forms on the tree of life as a newly described order called the Hodarchaeales (or Hods for short). The Hods, found in marine sediments, are one of several subgroups within the larger group of Asgard archaea.

The Asgard archaea evolved more than 2 billion years ago, and their descendants are still living. Some have been discovered in deep sea sediments and hot springs around the world, but so far only two strains have been successfully grown in the lab. To identify them, scientists collect their genetic material from the environment and then piece together their genomes. Based on genetic similarities with other organisms that can be grown in the lab and studied, the scientists can infer metabolism and other features of the Asgards.

"Imagine a time machine, not to explore the realms of dinosaurs or ancient civilizations, but to journey deep into the potential metabolic reactions that could have sparked the dawn of complex life," said Valerie De Anda, a researcher in Baker's lab. "Instead of fossils or ancient artifacts, we look at the genetic blueprints of modern microbes to reconstruct their past."

The Emerald Isle has far fewer earthquakes than neighboring Britain. Now scientists think they know why.
Ireland and Britain should be, seismologically speaking, equally boring. The two islands lie thousands of kilometers from the nearest plate boundary and are not volcanic hot spots. But though the ground rarely rumbles in Ireland, neighboring Britain experiences plenty of weak and moderate earthquakes.

The lithosphere — Earth's outermost rocky veneer, which includes the crust and the solid upper mantle — is thicker and cooler beneath Ireland than it is beneath Britain, new research has suggested. Cool, thick lithosphere is mechanically stronger than warm, thin lithosphere, which could explain the Emerald Isle's puzzling paucity of earthquakes. The new results, published in Geophysical Journal International, hinted that lithosphere thickness could underpin patterns in seismic activity in other places far from plate boundaries.

Modern DNA suggests that the Denisovans were surprisingly diverse — and may have been the last humans other than Homo sapiens on Earth.

Nearly a decade ago, a snippet of pinky bone found in Siberia introduced the world to a baffling new kind of ancient human. Called Denisovans, after the name of the cave in the Altai Mountains where the bone was found, these ancient relatives of the Neanderthals inhabited Asia for tens of thousands of years — yet no fossil trace of them has been found save that finger bone, a few teeth, and a scrap of skull, all from Denisova cave.

A study published today in Cell adds a surprising new twist to their mystery: DNA from a large sampling of living southeast Asians suggests that the ghostly Denisovans may be not one, but three distinct kinds of human, one of which is almost as different from other Denisovans as they are from Neanderthals.

What's more, while the Denisovans lived alongside humans for millennia, one group may have outlasted even the Neanderthals, who disappeared some 40,000 years ago. According to the study, these Denisovans co-existed and mixed with modern humans in New Guinea until at least 30,000 years ago — but perhaps as recently as 15,000 years ago — a date that, if confirmed, means Denisovans were the last known humans save ourselves to walk the Earth.

The asteroid will pass between Earth and the moon, but there's no need to worry.

Earth is about to have a close encounter with a space rock.

Tonight (June 25), the near-Earth asteroid 2023 MU2 will pass within 134,000 miles (215,000 kilometers) of Earth, or just about 60% of the average distance from our planet to the moon. While this flyby is fairly close in astronomical terms, the space rock isn't likely to pose any threat to Earth or spacecraft in its orbit. According to the NASA/JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the asteroid is estimated to be between 13 and 29 feet (3.9 and 8.8 meters) in diameter, roughly the size of a house or three-story building. 2023 MU2 will make its closest approach on June 25 at 7:19 p.m. ET (2319 GMT).

The Enigma of the Green Flash on Jupiter

NASA's Juno spacecraft, a marvel of modern space exploration, has recently captured an incredible image of a green flash on Jupiter, a phenomenon that has sparked the curiosity of scientists worldwide. This green flash, a lightning bolt, was observed in a swirling vortex near Jupiter's north pole, a sight that is becoming increasingly common on the gas giant compared to Earth, where lightning primarily occurs near the equator.

The green flash on Jupiter was captured during Juno's 31st close flyby of the planet on December 30, 2020. At the time, Juno was approximately 19,900 miles (32,000 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, approaching the planet at a latitude of about 78 degrees. The image was processed by citizen scientist Kevin Gill from raw data gathered by Juno's JunoCam instrument.

Unlike Earth, where lightning bolts originate from water clouds and mostly occur near the equator, the green flash on Jupiter emerges from the clouds made up of an ammonia-water solution, and they mostly occur near the poles of the planet. This difference in the formation of lightning is one of the many mysteries that the Juno mission aims to unravel.

DNA can mimic protein functions by folding into elaborate, three-dimensional structures, according to a study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

In the study, published June 21 in Nature, the researchers used high-resolution imaging techniques to reveal the novel and complex structure of a DNA molecule they created that mimics the activity of a protein called green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP, which was derived from jellyfish, has become an important laboratory tool, functioning as a fluorescent tag or beacon in cells.

The U.S. government is approving lab-grown meat sales to the public for the first time.

"Cultivated" meat producers UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat received approval from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Wednesday to begin commercially selling their chicken products.

"THE DAY HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!" UPSIDE Foods wrote Wednesday on social media. "We are APPROVED TO SELL our cell-cultivated chicken in the US!"

The company continued, "This historic, world-changing, moment brings our vision one giant bite closer to reality."