SPACE/COSMOS

Probing dark matter with lunar radio telescopes

University of Tsukuba

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Simulated distributions of cold and warm dark matter are shown using particles color-coded by temperature, accompanied by an illustration of lunar telescopes.

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Credit: Hyunbae Park, University of Tsukuba

Tsukuba, Japan—The Universe was born 13.8 billion years ago during a rapid expansion known as the Big Bang. Around 400,000 years later, it entered a period known as the "Dark Ages," which lasted for about 0.1 billion years until the first stars and galaxies began emitting light. During this time, hydrogens atoms are thought to have emitted faint radio waves at a wavelength of 21 cm, which likely carry important clues about the beginning of the Universe.

Through numerical simulations, researchers at University of Tsukuba and The University of Tokyo predicted the intensity of the 21-cm radio signal in different models of dark matter, the mysterious invisible substance that comprises around 80% of the matter in the Universe. By reproducing the distribution of gas and dark matter in the early Universe on supercomputers, the team calculated the intensity of the radio waves during the Dark Ages with unprecedented precision.

The results imply that hydrogen gas in the dark ages produced a characteristic signal of about 1 millikelvin (one-thousandth of a degree) in the brightness temperature of sky-averaged radio emission. Crucially, dark matter is expected to produce variations of similar magnitude in this signal. Observing the global signal across a broad frequency band (~45 MHz) could therefore reveal the mass and velocity of dark matter particles.

Several lunar missions, including Japan's Tsukuyomi Project, are now aiming to build radio telescopes on the Moon. If such telescopes can detect this faint signal, they will help unlock the mystery of dark matter.

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H.P. was supported in part by grant NSF PHY-2309135 to the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP). N.Y. acknowledges financial support from JSPS International Leading Research 23K20035. R.B. and N.Y. acknowledge JSPS Invitational Fellowship S24099.

 

Original Paper

Title of original paper:
The Signature of Sub-Galactic Dark Matter Clumping in the Global 21-cm Signal of Hydrogen

Journal:
Nature Astronomy

DOI:
10.1038/s41550-025-02637-0

Correspondence

Researcher Hyunbae Park
Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba

Project Professor YOSHIDA, Naoki
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), The University of Tokyo Institute for Advanced Study (UTIAS), The University of Tokyo

Related Link

Center for Computational Sciences

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Journal

Nature Astronomy

DOI

10.1038/s41550-025-02637-0 

Article Title

The signature of subgalactic dark matter clumping in the global 21-cm signal of hydrogen

Europe needs reusable rockets to catch Musk’s SpaceX: ESA chief


By AFP
October 9, 2025


The SpaceX Starship rocket launches from Starbase, Texas, as seen from South Padre Island on May 27, 2025 - Copyright AFP/File Sergio FLORES
Olga Nedbaeva and Bénédicte Rey

Europe must quickly get its own reusable rocket launcher to catch up to billionaire Elon Musk’s dominant SpaceX, European Space Agency director Josef Aschbacher told AFP in an interview.

While the US company has an overwhelming lead in the booming space launch industry, a series of setbacks, including Russia’s withdrawal of its rockets, left Europe without an independent way to blast its missions into space.

That year-long hiatus ended with the first launch of Europe’s much-delayed Ariane 6 rocket in July 2024. But the system is not reusable, unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 workhorse.

“We have to really catch up and make sure that we come to the market with a reusable launcher relatively fast,” Aschbacher said at AFP’s headquarters in Paris.

“We are on the right path” to getting this done, he added.

– ‘Paradigm shift’ –

European Space Agency director Josef Aschbacher is calling on Europe to pay up to compete in a booming space economy – Copyright AFP JOEL SAGET

The ESA has already announced a shortlist of five European aerospace companies bidding to build the continent’s first reusable rocket launch system.

That number will be narrowed down to two — or even one — at the agency’s ministerial council in the German city of Bremen next month, Aschbacher said.

“Ariane 6 is an excellent rocket — it’s very precise,” Aschbacher said. “We have now had three launches,” with two more expected before the year’s end, he added.

Despite finally getting Ariane 6 and the new, smaller Vega C launcher off the ground, the ESA has decided on a “paradigm shift”, Aschbacher said.

“The next generation of launchers will be very different,” he told AFP.

When Ariane 6 was being planned more than a decade ago, reusability was not considered worth the extra cost and time.

But it has come under criticism when compared to the relatively cheap, reusable Falcon 9, which has completed well over 100 launches this year alone.

So the ESA has decided to emulate NASA, which also used to develop its own rockets but now outsources its launches to private companies such as SpaceX or Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.

– A European Starlink? –

Many of the Falcon 9 flights have carried the more than 8,000 satellites that make up Musk’s Starlink internet network into space.

The European Union is planning to create its own internet satellite constellation called IRIS2, scheduled to become operational in 2030.

“Europe needs it absolutely urgently,” Aschbacher said.

“We have to make sure that we have the rockets to bring our satellites to space.”

He stressed that IRIS2 would be “very different” from Starlink, with fewer satellites, while focusing more on “secure communication”.

The constellation will mark a technological leap forward, even though Europe sometimes lags “a few years behind” its competitors, Aschbacher said.

Aschbacher noted that the EU’S navigation satellite system Galileo and Earth observation programme Copernicus started out 10 to 15 years behind US competitors GPS and Landsat.

Now both EU programmes are “the best in the world”, he said.

Aschbacher lamented that European public investment in space is declining, even as the global space economy grows.

He called for “very strong financial engagement” from the ESA’s 23 member states, which includes the United Kingdom, at next month’s ministerial council.

– Impact of Trump cuts? –

In the United States, President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed slashing NASA’s budget, signalling it wants to cancel the joint Mars Sample Return mission with the ESA.

If the cuts go ahead, Aschbacher said, they could also affect shared missions such as the use of the International Space Station and the Artemis programme to put astronauts back on the Moon, he said.

The three ESA missions most likely to be affected are the EnVision mission to Venus, LISA gravitational wave observatory and NewAthena X-ray telescope, Aschbacher said.

However, Europe intends to complete these “flagship missions” even if the United States pulls out — perhaps by bringing in other partners, he added.

Aschbacher also said there had been “interest from our colleagues in the United States” in applying for jobs at the ESA.

 

NUS-SCELSE researchers uncover hidden plant–microbe strategy that boosts crop growth under nutrient stress

National University of Singapore

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The researchers found that soil microbes competing with each other release glutathione which  enhances plant growth under sulphur-deficient conditions.

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Credit: SCELSE

Scientists from SCELSE – a biofilm & microbiome research centre and the National University of Singapore (NUS), have uncovered a surprising strategy plants use to thrive when an essential nutrient — sulphur — is in short supply.

The team discovered that when soil microbes compete with each other in the rhizosphere (the soil surrounding plant roots), they release a well-known compound called glutathione. This compound enhances plant growth under sulphur-deficient conditions. The catch: while plants benefit, some microbes lose out in their own growth.

The researchers call this balancing act a “trans-kingdom fitness trade-off” — where one kingdom of life (microbes) sacrifices part of its growth, while another (plants) gains resilience.

The global problem: declining sulphur in soils

Sulphur (S) is essential for plant growth, just like nitrogen and phosphorus. It supports protein synthesis, vitamin production, and stress resistance.

Historically, sulphur pollution from industrial emissions replenished soils worldwide. But with cleaner energy and stricter air-quality regulations, atmospheric sulphur levels have dropped. While good for air quality and human health, this has unintentionally reduced natural sulphur deposits in agricultural soils.

Over time, crops have drawn down existing soil sulphur, leaving soils deficient. To compensate, farmers increasingly apply synthetic sulphur-based fertilisers. These short-term fixes come with costs: runoff from farmlands contaminates rivers, lakes, and ecosystems, exacerbating environmental degradation.

The new discovery: a microbial boost

The SCELSE-led study, published in Cell Host & Microbe on 26 September 2025, provides a novel mechanistic explanation of how plants and microbes jointly navigate nutrient stress. The researchers found that when soil bacteria compete for nutrients, they release glutathione — a compound that boosts plant growth under sulphur-deficient conditions, even though it reduces bacterial growth.

This improvement in plant fitness came at the cost of bacterial fitness — a biological trade-off across kingdoms of life.

“This work introduces the concept of a trans-kingdom fitness trade-off and provides a mechanistic explanation for it,” said first author Arijit Mukherjee, who was a PhD student at SCELSE and the NUS Department of Biological Sciences when the study was conducted. “Plant fitness isn’t just about the plant itself — it’s about the whole community of microbes around it. Understanding these trade-offs helps us design better microbial solutions for resilient crops.”

Why it matters

Such trade-offs are likely widespread across host–microbe systems, not just in plants, and may represent hidden strategies by which holobionts (hosts and their associated microbes) adapt collectively to environmental cues.

For agriculture, this insight is powerful: instead of relying on chemical fertilisers, researchers can design microbial consortia (or “cocktails”) that naturally boost crop health under nutrient stress. This nature-based solution can reduce fertiliser use, improve soil health, and contribute to global food security.

Assoc Prof Sanjay Swarup, Principal Investigator at SCELSE, explained: “This study provides a blueprint for sustainable agriculture. By tapping into natural plant–microbe partnerships, we can reduce fertiliser use, protect ecosystems, and still secure global food supplies.”

From discovery to application: patent filed

To translate this breakthrough into practice, the team has filed a patent covering applications of this plant–microbe mechanism in agriculture. This will enable the development of bio-based products that support crops in sulphur-deficient soils, reducing reliance on chemical inputs.

“By considering not only microbial functions but also their interactions, we can design more effective microbial consortia for agriculture,” added Assoc Prof Swarup, who is also the Deputy Director for NUS Environmental Research Institute (NERI) and a faculty member of the NUS Department of Biological Sciences. “This is the path toward resilient, climate-ready farming.”

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Journal

Cell Host & Microbe

DOI

10.1016/j.chom.2025.09.007 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

A bacterial signal coordinates plant-microbe fitness trade-off to enhance sulfur deficiency tolerance in plants

Article Publication Date

8-Oct-2025

 

How did the East Asian summer monsoon shape the genomic evolution of Engelhardia?

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.

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MAIN RESULT AND FIGURE. IDENTIFICATION OF THE TERPENE SYNTHASE (TPS) GENE FAMILY IN ENGELHARDIA AND THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON TERPENOID BIOSYNTHESIS IN E. FENZELII.

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Credit: LI ET AL, 2025, PLANT DIVERSITY

The East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) is a key climatic driver shaping ecosystems in East Asia by regulating water and heat patterns. Its fluctuations over geological times have influenced vegetation types and species adaptation. In particular, subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests (EBLFs) have expanded significantly due to the EASM, contributing to biodiversity and providing vital ecological services. However, the genomic mechanisms behind plant adaptation to the EASM remain largely unexplored. Understanding these mechanisms is essential for uncovering how plant species have historically responded to monsoon-driven climate shifts and how they continue to adapt to ongoing environmental changes.

To investigate this, Dr. Hong-Hu Meng and colleagues from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, focused on the genus Engelhardia, a common and characteristic component of China's EBLFs, which spans multiple ecological zones from tropical rainforests to subtropical forests.

The team's findings were published as a cover article in the KeAi journal Plant Diversity under the title of "Genome analyses provide insights into Engelhardia’s adaptation to East Asia Summer Monsoon".

This work started with the sequencing of genomes of five Engelhardia species and the closely related Rhoiptelea chiliantha using PacBio HiFi and Hi-C. The resulting high-quality assemblies revealed substantial variation in genome size (414.56–985.85 Mb) and gene number (31,000–53,000).

“Phylogenomic analyses estimate the divergence between the evergreen lineages (E. fenzelii, E. roxburghiana) and the deciduous lineage (E. spicata) at approximately 52 Mya,” shares Meng. “A subsequent separation between E. fenzelii and E. roxburghiana occurred around 25 Mya, coinciding with the intensification of the EASM, which likely drove the transition from deciduous to evergreen forest ecosystems in Asia.”

Gene family analyses further support this divergence, revealing functional differentiation between the lineages. “Evergreen species have expanded genes related to photosynthesis, hormone signaling, and redox processes, whereas deciduous species have prioritized genes involved in drought response,” says Meng.

Notably, E. fenzelii exhibits a significant expansion of the TPS gene family, which likely contributes to its enhanced survival in humid, competitive environments. “Additionally, transposable elements play a key role in the larger genome size of E. fenzelii, further facilitating its adaptation to the moist, monsoonal climate,” adds Meng.

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Contact the author: Contact the author: Hong-Hu Meng, menghonghu@xtbg.ac.cn

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

 

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Journal

Plant Diversity

DOI

10.1016/j.pld.2025.07.003 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Genome analyses provide insights into Engelhardia’s adaptation to East Asia summer monsoon

UK

‘Be careful what you wish for…’

Emma Burnell  8  October, 2025

Tory conference ends today with a speech by Kemi Badenoch. Did you notice it was happening?

As a reader of a political website, you might have.  But you would be very unusual.

Drifting to apathy

This is not to say that the other party conferences, even that of the Party of government, would have made a huge public impact. That isn’t how our current news environment works. But reports from the conference all describe small audiences and a lack of energy and coherence from the top down. I mean this is a party that can’t even be trusted to spell Britain, never mind govern it. They are no longer a serious party and the burghers in Barbour who would once have flocked to this gathering of the faithful know it. Some have drifted to Reform, some to the Lib Dems, many to apathy.

Most of the talk about the Tories is about what would have seemed unthinkable (if desirable) for most of my life – their demise as a major political party. God I wanted to see that. To see the party of Thatcher consigned to the dustbin of history – well I am not going to pretend that this likelihood doesn’t still give me a definite thrill.

But here’s the thing – Thatcher may have long since departed but her economic legacy doesn’t just remain – it has metastasised. I do not believe that New Labour were the children of Thatcher in quite the way she purported to (and how clever was that as a piece of political messaging? Further cementing distrust of Blair from the left while allowing the Tories to claim their austerity as a “continuation” of Blairism).

But the notion of Thatcherite economics has gone from a deep philosophy of a small state where the government was unafraid to go through the pain of having distinctive losers (both workers and the millions made unemployed) and winners to a vague notion that any and all tax cuts will bring growth – no matter what the impact on the state’s capacity to deliver or the economic ability to fund those cuts. The Tories became unwilling to make the argument for cutting the state – the prerequisite for Thatcherism – because by the end, even they knew there were no more cut they could make that wouldn’t lead to a howl of pain from the country they wanted to serve. Boris Johnson was no Thatcherite – he was too unwilling to be unloved. That he became despised for his own careless cruelty overseeing a Downing Street that saw itself as above the ‘plebs’ should not be confused with having a genuine political philosophy rather than simply a desire to be ‘World King.”

The supposedly ‘liberal’ Tories David Cameron and George Osborne – who did so much talking left on social issues to woo a gullible commentariat who were bored with Labour dominance – are now wining and dining Robert Jenrick – he of the “No non-white faces” comments. This is seen by some as a dramatic shift. It’s not. Their politics of austerity always had winners and losers too. It was described by some as “Thatcherism on steroids” and so it proved both in the impact it had on the losers and the long term damage it did to our economy, our productivity and people’s lives. Those losers have seen wages stagnate for a decade and a half while the services they relied on were chipped away at (at best) and torn away. Their anger has been directed into first Brexit and now immigration protests. I might disagree with the solutions they believe in but their anger at their loss is genuine and should be respected and understood.

The Tories are now trying to reclaim the mantle of “fiscal rectitude” at their mini conference. Good luck, as they say, with that. But they don’t actually mean running a good economy that benefits the majority of the citizens of the UK. They mean cutting the state back ever further with no answers for what that would mean for these same people who are angry at what has already been lost. This is something even Reform UK don’t support. As they have found out in the places they are in power – such as Kent where they are mooting raising Council Tax – there are some things the (local in this case) state has to do and it has already been cut to the bone by Cameron and Osborne.

The party of Liz Truss Boris Johnson  and Cameron and Osborne making claims to be the party of sound finances is just laughable. And people are just laughing. The Tories don’t inspire the kind of fear or admiration (depending on your viewpoint) that they previously generated. They just inspire derision. I’ve never – not even when we were laughing at William Hague in a baseball cap in the pretty sound knowledge that the Tories wouldn’t come back at the 2001 election – known a party so beaten. Even the 2015 Lib Dems might look at the Tories now with pity.

No path back

It is very hard to see a path back for the Tories at the moment. The Tories haven’t just been beaten, they have been hollowed out first by their consequences of their own bad policies then by their inability to face those consequences head on. And finally by the fracturing of their vote to an insurgent populist right that they were utterly unequipped to fight. In fact they can’t even decide if they want to fight or flirt with Reform.

Where the Lib Dems were given a political lifeline by Brexit and their chance to remake themselves in opposition to their former allies, there is little on the horizon that offers hope of a resurgence of Tory conservatism. If people want right wing populism they will vote for the (more) popular version in Reform. If people want ‘small c conservative’ economics with a liberal bent they will vote for the Lib Dems. Some have said that a recession might be the way back for the Tories. I don’t think a recession will push the ever growing band of those likely to lose out away from populists. That’s not the lesson I take from history. So even if the Tories are wishing for Labour to fail in this way, they too should be careful what they wish for. Even more they should be careful to not be seen wishing for it.

Easier opponent?

Labour may be in the doldrums in terms of their polling and popularity but what they aren’t is beaten. However, there are significant problems that come for Labour in the demise of the Tories.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook.

Labour know how to fight the Tories – we’ve done it for decades. Sometimes we’ve even succeeded. We have become very good at defining ourselves against the Tories. We now have to unlearn a lot of that.

If Labour simply try to run the same playbook against Reform as they have against the Tories it will fail. Because Reform are not the same as the Tories nor are they seeking to appeal to the same voters as the Tories. Some of their older voters, true, are some of the lower middle class winners from Thatcherism. The tiny brief cohort that did well out of the ‘property owning democracy’ who became landlords of houses that were once socially owned. But mostly, Reform are appealing to those who feel they have lost out and are angry about it. Reform have an answer to that anger.

I may believe with every fibre of my being that every element of their answer is wrong. But I do know who they are appealing to and I recognise the strength of that appeal. And some of that strength – the reason for their ‘us and them’ rhetoric is that they have recognised that we are in a time of winners and losers. And they are appealing to those who have felt themselves to be on the losing side for far too long. Grievance politics is ugly and would be a catastrophic path for Labour to ape. But if Labour does not recognise that this is what we’re fighting against – and offer hope to the aggrieved – then we will fail to stem the tide.

Labour have also got a lot of the fight against the Tories wrong over the years. Labour’s have suffered losses through many attempts to draw very simplistic ‘class war’ lines against the Tories that might please activists but repelled voters. Voters in the Red Wall loved Boris until they didn’t. And it wasn’t him being posh that did for him. Simply pointing at Nigel Farage and saying “But he’s posh” will do nothing to diminish his credibility.

Reform would be seriously lost without Nigel Farage. In fact, one thing that has really struck me when listening (as I do obsessively)  to political programmes and podcasts is that the words ‘Farage’ and ‘Reform’ are pretty much interchangeable. So it will be an important part of Labour’s strategy to bring down Farage’s popularity.

But they will not do this if they return to that old playbook of pointing out he went to Dulwich and used to be a stockbroker. The voters have that priced in. We need to be asking Reform curious voters what they are most worried about when it comes to Farage and use that to define him. Not simply tell ourselves the scare stories about him that get our juices flowing.

Labour might end up missing the Tories as an easier to define opponent. They may also (whisper it) want them to recover just enough in the polls to split the right wing vote to allow them to come through the middle. If Labour don’t manage to adjust to a post-Tory reality the irony might be that the last thing the Tories manage to harm is – once again – Labour.

Emma Burnell

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