Wednesday, August 27, 2025

 

Breathwork can induce altered states of consciousness linked with changes in brain blood flow



High ventilation breathwork while listening to music was associated with reports of blissful states and reduced negative emotions, accompanied by increased blood flow to emotion-processing brain regions




PLOS

Neurobiological substrates of altered states of consciousness induced by high ventilation breathwork accompanied by music 

image: 

Researchers in the Clinical Neuroscience Department of Brighton and Sussex Medical School conducted breathwork research in a physiology lab and MRI scanner (from Air Hunger documentary).

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Credit: Air Hunger, directed by Bob van de Gronde, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)





Breathwork while listening to music may induce a blissful state in practitioners, accompanied by changes in blood flow to emotion-processing brain regions, according to a study published August 27, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Amy Amla Kartar from the Colasanti Lab in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, U.K., and colleagues. These changes occur even while the body’s stress response may be activated and are associated with reporting reduced negative emotions.

The popularity of breathwork as a therapeutic tool for psychological distress is rapidly expanding. Breathwork practices that increase ventilatory rate or depth, accompanied by music, can lead to altered states of consciousness (ASCs) similar to those evoked by psychedelic substances. High ventilation breathwork (HVB) might offer a non-pharmacological alternative, with fewer legal and ethical restrictions to large-scale adoption in clinical treatment. However, the neurobiological mechanisms and subjective experience underlying ASCs induced by HVB have not been studied extensively.

To fill this knowledge gap, Kartar and colleagues characterized ASCs induced by HVB in experienced practitioners by analyzing self-reported data from 15 individuals who participated online, 8 individuals who participated in the lab, and 19 individuals who underwent magnetic resonance imaging. Their task consisted of a 20- to 30-minute session of cyclic breathing without pausing while listening to music, followed by a series of questionnaires within 30 minutes of finishing the breathwork session.

The results showed that the intensity of ASCs evoked by HVB was proportional to cardiovascular sympathetic activation, as indicated by a decrease in heart rate variability, indicating a potential stress response. In addition, HVB-evoked ASCs were associated with a profound decrease in blood flow to the left operculum and posterior insula – brain regions implicated in representing the internal state of the body, including breathing. Also, despite HVB causing large and global reductions in blood flow to the brain, there was a progressive increase in blood flow during the session to the right amygdala and anterior hippocampus, which are brain regions involved in the processing of emotional memories. These blood flow changes correlated with psychedelic experiences, demonstrating that these alterations may underlie the positive effects of this breathwork.

During all experimental sessions, participants reported a reduction in fear and negative emotions, with no adverse reactions. Across participants and experimental settings, HVB reliably enhanced ASCs dominated by Oceanic Boundlessness (OBN), which is a term coined by Freud in 1920 that describes a set of related feelings including spiritual experience, insightfulness, blissful state, positively experienced depersonalization, and the experience of unity. OBN is considered as a defining aspect of ASCs evoked by psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin.

According to the authors, their study was novel and exploratory and requires replication by future research including larger sample sizes and a control group to separate the effects of music on the brain. Despite these limitations, the findings provide a better understanding of HVB and direct research to investigate its therapeutic applications.

The authors add: “Our research is the first to use neuroimaging to map the neurophysiological changes that occur during breathwork. Our key findings include that breathwork can reliably evoke profound psychedelic states. We believe that these states are linked to changes in the function of specific brain regions involved in self-awareness, and fear and emotional memory processing. We found that more profound changes in blood flow in specific brain areas were linked to deeper sensations of unity, bliss, and emotional release, collectively known as “oceanic boundlessness”.

Amy Kartar, lead author, adds: “Conducting this research was a fantastic experience. It was thrilling to explore such a novel area – while many people anecdotally recognize the health benefits of breathwork, this style of fast-paced breathing has received very little scientific attention. We are very grateful to our participants for making this work possible.”

Dr. Alessandro Colasanti, P.I., adds: “Breathwork is a powerful yet natural tool for neuromodulation, working through the regulation of metabolism across the body and brain. It holds tremendous promise as a transformative therapeutic intervention for conditions that are often both distressing and disabling.”

 

 

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Onehttp://plos.io/41BY5Hp

Citation: Kartar AA, Horinouchi T, Ă–rzsik B, Anderson B, Hall L, Bailey D, et al. (2025) Neurobiological substrates of altered states of consciousness induced by high ventilation breathwork accompanied by music. PLoS One 20(8): e0329411. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329411

Author countries: U.K., Japan, The Netherlands, U.S.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

SPACE/COSMOS

Scientists reveal warped protoplanetary discs, reshaping ideas about how planets form


New ALMA observations reveal that the discs where planets form are often slightly warped, challenging long-held assumptions and offering clues about the subtle misalignments seen in our own Solar System


Queen Mary University of London

Visualisation of the warped disc around the young star MWC 758, with warping exaggerated by a factor four to make it visible 

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Visualisation of the warped disc around the young star MWC 758, with warping exaggerated by a factor four to make it visible. Both panels show properties of the disc inferred from CO emission. On the left-hand side, we see deviations in the line-of-sight velocity from the expected rotation if the disc were flat. The variations in velocity can be used to infer the warp structure. On the right-hand side we see variations in the gas temperature, from which we can see evidence of shadowing in areas of the disc.

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Credit: Dr A Winter, Queen Mary University of London





The textbook picture of how planets form – serene, flat discs of cosmic dust – has just received a significant cosmic twist. New research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is set to reshape this long-held view. An international team of scientists, wielding the formidable power of the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), has found compelling evidence that many protoplanetary discs, the very birthplaces of planets, are in fact subtly warped.
 
These slight bends and twists in the disc plane, often just a few degrees, bear a striking resemblance to the subtle tilts observed among the planets in our own Solar System. This discovery suggests the initial conditions for planetary systems might be far less orderly than previously thought, with profound implications for how planets grow and settle into their final orbits.

Dr Andrew Winter, the lead author of the study from Queen Mary University of London where he is Royal Society University Research Fellow in astronomy, said: "Our results suggest that protoplanetary discs are slightly warped. This would be quite a change in how we understand these objects and has many consequences for how planets formParticularly interesting is that the couple of degree warping is similar to the differences in inclination between our own Solar System planets."

Dr Myriam Benisty, director of the Planet and Star Formation Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy said,“exoALMA has revealed large scale structures in the planet forming discs that were completely unexpected. The warp-like structures challenge the idea of orderly planet formation and pose a fascinating challenge for the future.

To uncover these subtle twists, the team meticulously analysed Doppler shifts – tiny changes in the radio waves emitted by carbon monoxide (CO) molecules swirling within the discs. These shifts act like a cosmic speedometer, revealing the gas's exact motion. As part of a major ALMA programme called exoALMA, researchers used this flagship observatory to map the gas's velocity across each disc in unprecedented detail. By carefully modelling these intricate patterns, they were able to detect when different regions of a disc were slightly tilted, thus revealing the warps.

"These modest misalignments may be a common outcome of star and planet formation," Dr Winter added, noting the intriguing parallel with our own Solar System. The research not only provides a fresh perspective on the mechanics of planet formation but also raises new questions about why these discs are warped – a mystery the team is eager to unravel. 

Is it the gravitational pull of unseen companion stars, or perhaps the chaotic dance of gas and dust that twists these stellar cradles? The findings show that these subtle disc warps, often tilting by as little as half a degree to two degrees, can naturally explain many of the prominent large-scale patterns observed in the gas's motion across the discs. They even suggest these warps could be responsible for creating intriguing spiral patterns and slight temperature variations within these cosmic nurseries.

If these warps are a key driver of how gas moves within the disc, it profoundly changes our understanding of critical processes like turbulence and how material is exchanged – ultimately dictating how planets form and settle into their final orbits. Intriguingly, the nature of these warps appears to be connected to how much material the young star is actively drawing in towards its centre. This hints at a dynamic link between the disc's innermost regions, where the star is fed, and its outer, planet-forming areas. 

This discovery offers a thrilling glimpse into the complex and often surprising realities of planet formation, fundamentally changing our cosmic blueprint and opening new avenues for understanding the diverse worlds beyond our Sun.

This research was conducted by the ‘exoALMA’ collaboration that is an international collaboration of institutions including the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), University of Florida, Leiden Observatory (Leiden University), European Southern Observatory, UniversitĂ  degli Studi di Milano, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Universidad de Chile, University of St. Andrews, UniversitĂ© CĂ´te d’Azur, The University of Georgia, Monash University, University of Leeds, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, University of Cambridge, Ibaraki University, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Wesleyan University, and The Pennsylvania State University.

ENDS  
 
This press release is based on an article "exoALMA XVIII. Interpreting large scale kinematic structures as moderate warping", embargoed until its publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters. 

The pre print is available to read here  https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.11669

The final article will be here: The Astrophysical Journal Letters - IOPscience
URL: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf113
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/adf113

For more information on this release or to speak with Dr Andrew Winter, please contact Lucia Graves at Queen Mary University of London.

SpaceX pulls off Starship rocket launch, deploying dummy satellites into space



Copyright Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. AP Photo/Eric Gay

By Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom with AP
Published on 27/08/2025 

The rocket deployed eight dummy satellites into space, before splashing down as planned into the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX pulled off a successful launch of its mega rocket Starship on Tuesday, deploying its first batch of eight dummy satellites in space.

Starship blasted off from SpaceX's launch site in South Texas, known as Starbase, just after 6:30PM. After cruising in space for just over an hour, the rocket splashed down into the Indian Ocean, as planned.

The spacecraft's Super Heavy Booster separated from the Starship upper stage three minutes after launch and also successfully returned for a pre-planned splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic.

No crew were on board of the demo launch, but Musk's ultimate goal is for the spacecraft to deliver people and cargo to the moon, and eventually also Mars.




The billionaire has repeatedly said his vision is for a fully reusable space vehicle that can do repeat return trips without crews as soon as 2026. He then aims for a space crew to be aboard in 2029.

Later this decade, NASA hopes two Starships will land astronauts on the moon.
Success after several failed attempts

The mission marked the 10th test flight for the world's largest and most powerful rocket, breaking a streak of previously failed attempts.

The full Starship spacecraft exploded on its inaugural test flight in 2023, and again during tests in January and March. In the last and ninth attempt in May, the spacecraft tumped out of control and broke apart.

This time, SpaceX redesigned the Super Heavy Booster with larger and stronger fings for greater stability.

Cosmic butterfly reveals clues to Earth's creation





Royal Astronomical Society

Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302 (Webb and ALMA image) 

image: 

This image, which combines infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the Butterfly Nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions.

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Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)






Clues about how worlds like Earth may have formed have been found buried at the heart of a spectacular 'cosmic butterfly'.

With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers say they have made a big leap forward in our understanding of how the raw material of rocky planets comes together.

This cosmic dust – tiny particles of minerals and organic material which include ingredients linked to the origins of life – was studied at the core of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, which is located about 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.

From the dense, dusty torus that surrounds the star hidden at the centre of the nebula to its outflowing jets, the Webb observations reveal many new discoveries that paint a never-before-seen portrait of a dynamic and structured planetary nebula.

They have been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Most cosmic dust has an amorphous, or randomly oriented-atomic structure, like soot. But some of it forms beautiful, crystalline shapes, more like tiny gemstones.

"For years, scientists have debated how cosmic dust forms in space. But now, with the help of the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, we may finally have a clearer picture," said lead researcher Dr Mikako Matsuura, of Cardiff University.

"We were able to see both cool gemstones formed in calm, long-lasting zones and fiery grime created in violent, fast-moving parts of space, all within a single object.

"This discovery is a big step forward in understanding how the basic materials of planets, come together."

The Butterfly Nebula's central star is one of the hottest known central stars in a planetary nebula in our galaxy, with a temperature of 220,000 Kelvin.

This blazing stellar engine is responsible for the nebula's gorgeous glow, but its full power may be channelled by the dense band of dusty gas that surrounds it: the torus.

The new Webb data show that the torus is composed of crystalline silicates like quartz as well as irregularly shaped dust grains. The dust grains have sizes on the order of a millionth of a metre — large, as far as cosmic dust is considered — indicating that they have been growing for a long time.

Outside the torus, the emission from different atoms and molecules takes on a multilayered structure. The ions that require the largest amount of energy to form are concentrated close to the centre, while those that require less energy are found farther from the central star.

Iron and nickel are particularly interesting, tracing a pair of jets that blast outward from the star in opposite directions.

Intriguingly, the team also spotted light emitted by carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. They form flat, ring-like structures, much like the honeycomb shapes found in beehives.

On Earth, we often find PAHs in smoke from campfires, car exhaust, or burnt toast.

Given the location of the PAHs, the research team suspects that these molecules form when a 'bubble' of wind from the central star bursts into the gas that surrounds it.

This may be the first-ever evidence of PAHs forming in a oxygen-rich planetary nebula, providing an important glimpse into the details of how these molecules form.

NGC 6302 is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae in our galaxy and was previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Planetary nebulae are among the most beautiful and most elusive creatures in the cosmic zoo. These nebulae form when stars with masses between about 0.8 and 8 times the mass of the Sun shed most of their mass at the end of their lives. The planetary nebula phase is fleeting, lasting only about 20,000 years.

Contrary to the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets: the naming confusion began several hundred years ago, when astronomers reported that these nebulae appeared round, like planets.

The name stuck, even though many planetary nebulae aren't round at all — and the Butterfly Nebula is a prime example of the fantastic shapes that these nebulae can take.

The Butterfly Nebula is a bipolar nebula, meaning that it has two lobes that spread in opposite directions, forming the 'wings' of the butterfly. A dark band of dusty gas poses as the butterfly's 'body'.

This band is actually a doughnut-shaped torus that's being viewed from the side, hiding the nebula's central star — the ancient core of a Sun-like star that energises the nebula and causes it to glow. The dusty doughnut may be responsible for the nebula's insectoid shape by preventing gas from flowing outward from the star equally in all directions.

The new Webb image zooms in on the centre of the Butterfly Nebula and its dusty torus, providing an unprecedented view of its complex structure. The image uses data from Webb's Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) working in integral field unit mode.

This mode combines a camera and a spectrograph to take images at many different wavelengths simultaneously, revealing how an object’s appearance changes with wavelength. The research team supplemented the Webb observations with data from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array, a powerful network of radio dishes.

Researchers analysing these Webb data identified nearly 200 spectral lines, each of which holds information about the atoms and molecules in the nebula. These lines reveal nested and interconnected structures traced by different chemical species.

The research team were able to pinpoint the location of the Butterfly Nebula's central star, which heats a previously undetected dust cloud around it, making the latter shine brightly at the mid-infrared wavelengths that MIRI is sensitive to.

The location of the nebula's central star has remained elusive until now, because this enshrouding dust renders it invisible at optical wavelengths. Previous searches for the star lacked the combination of infrared sensitivity and resolution necessary to spot its obscuring warm dust cloud.

ENDS

This annotated image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Credit

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

This image set showcases three views of the Butterfly Nebula, featuring an optical and near-infrared view from Hubble (left and middle) and the latest Webb/ALMA image.

Credit

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, K. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Images & captions

Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302 (Webb and ALMA image)

Caption: This image, which combines infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the Butterfly Nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

 

Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302 (Webb and ALMA image, annotated)

Caption: This annotated image takes the viewer on a deep dive into the heart of the Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302, as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

 

Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302 (Hubble and Webb + ALMA images, side by side)

Caption: This image set showcases three views of the Butterfly Nebula, featuring an optical and near-infrared view from Hubble (left and middle) and the latest Webb/ALMA image.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, J. Kastner, K. Noll, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, J. Kastner, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)


Further information

The paper ‘How is cosmic dust, the raw material of rocky planets and a key ingredient for life, formed in space?’ by Mikako Matsuura et al. has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf1194.

 

About the James Webb Space Telescope

Webb is the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under an international collaboration agreement, ESA provided the telescope’s launch service, using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace. ESA also provided the workhorse spectrograph NIRSpec and 50% of the mid-infrared instrument MIRI, which was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).


Notes for editors

About the Royal Astronomical Society

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The RAS organises scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognises outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 4,000 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.

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