Radio signal from another world, autism and intrauterine infections, the length of the day

A radio signal from an exoplanet has been registered on Earth

Earth astronomers have for the first time registered radio bursts that came from a planet beyond the Solar System. The “voice” was given by a gas giant orbiting Beta Pictoris — a star that is located 63 light years from us. This is a true giant — the planet is 12 times heavier than Jupiter; it is located about one and a half billion kilometers from its star (like Saturn from the Sun).

The radio signal was recorded by the MeerKAT radio interferometer, which operates in South Africa. The range of the signal is from 0.85 to 3.5 GHz; the structure includes both relatively constant radiation and short bursts that propagated as if in a spiral. And this means that the radio emission may be connected with the movement of charged particles in the magnetic field of the mega-Jupiter. In the magnetospheres of our planets such flows are also formed — as a rule, we see them as auroras.

It is unlikely that these signals are being sent to us by friendly races. But then why observe them and where did they even come from?

By the frequency of the radio wave bursts astronomers managed to determine the strength of the planet's magnetic field, and it turned out to be completely indecent: 1.5 kilogauss. This is 2,500 times stronger than Earth's (0.5 gauss), 300 times stronger than Jupiter's (4.3 gauss). Incidentally, the result turned out to be close to the calculated one — approximately this was expected from a young and hot gas giant. And this became the first direct measurement of an exoplanet's magnetic field in the history of Earth science.

The bursts, according to scientists, are connected with how fast the planet rotates (9 hours around its axis — at such dimensions this is practically a spinning top), and with that very enormous magnetic field. And they may also be caused by the stellar wind or by the fact that somewhere nearby the picture is blurred by a natural satellite of the planet.

This important discovery allows astronomers to directly measure the magnetic fields of other exoplanets — in turn, this gives much for understanding the physics of other worlds.

Nanoparticles became “solar batteries” for a blinded eye

An international group of scientists led by specialists of Aarhus University (Denmark) has devised how to replace dead neurons and activate those existing in a damaged retina of the eye. Such states arise in neurodegenerative diseases of the retina — pigmentary retinitis, for example. The photoreceptors of the retina die, but the deeper neurons, which receive the signal from them and redirect it to the brain, live on for a long time. But they cannot work without photoreceptors.

To again “give them work” and return vision to patients, physicists and biologists created light-sensitive nanoparticles of graphitic carbon nitride, which effectively absorb visible light. They are introduced into the eye by injection, distribute evenly over the retina and begin to work there as photoreceptors. At the moment when light falls on the nanoparticle, a physicochemical response arises in it. An impulse is generated on those very “conductor” neurons, and they send signals to the brain.

The system works — at least on mice. Animals that until now were absolutely blind began to see light after testing the described technology. On isolated tissues of a pig's retina the technology also showed successful operation.

Microscopic “solar batteries” made of nanoparticles are introduced by an ordinary injection, and they do not care what the cause of the loss of vision was. That is, the technology is universal. What remains is to study how the material will behave in the tissues of the eye in the long-term perspective — and to begin clinical trials on humans.

Sound sleep is the guarantee of health

Medics from Beijing tried to clearly fix how the phases of sleep are interconnected with overall health. It has long been clear that for good health a person needs to sleep well, but it is very difficult to measure the quality of sleep in different phases precisely.

Therefore scientists from the Capital Medical University used an array of data from the British Biobank on the health condition of 95,559 people who wore fitness trackers and accelerometers for seven days. The devices recorded vital indicators and continuously sent a stream of signals to the research center. To process these data, the researchers applied a deep learning algorithm that accurately recognized the phases of sleep (rapid, deep slow, light), recorded the moments when a person woke up at night, and tracked the instability of the schedule.

After this the health of the participants was tracked for another nine years. From the data in their medical records scientists were able to understand how the quality of sleep influenced the development of various pathologies.

The result turned out to be this: the structure of sleep reliably influences 156 diseases. And people who have a large share of rapid sleep (REM sleep) turned out to be resistant to 83 diseases. Chinese medics believe that this phase, during which we see dreams and live through emotions, is critically important for protecting the nervous and vascular system. Thus, if the rapid sleep phase lengthens by 47.6 minutes on average — the probability of developing heart failure decreases by 26%, dementia — by 46%, and Parkinson's disease — by as much as 80%.

Deep slow sleep, in turn, protects us from type II diabetes mellitus and clinical depression. And if one often wakes up at night and rests unsystematically — this raises the risk of mental disorders and even the development of dependencies on alcohol or drugs.

Congenital infections have been linked to a heightened risk of autism and intellectual development disorders

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have found a connection between infections that a child can catch during pregnancy and the subsequent development of autism and intellectual development disorders. For this the scientists analyzed medical data of almost 3.7 million people born in Sweden from 1987 to 2021.

This concerns the so-called TORCH infections — a group of diseases whose causative agents are capable of being transmitted from mother to child even before birth. It includes toxoplasmosis, syphilis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, herpes. These viruses can be transmitted to the child in the womb even before it is born.

The study included 975 children with a confirmed congenital TORCH infection. The participants were observed from birth to the end of 2023, comparing information about the infection with subsequent diagnoses and learning results. It turned out that among children who received the infection even before birth, autism was diagnosed approximately three times more often than among uninfected peers. Intellectual development delay occurred more than seven times more often, and the probability of a severe or profound degree of intellectual disorders could be up to 30 times higher.

At the same time the researchers emphasize an important detail: a high relative risk does not mean that intrauterine infections are one hundred percent a widespread cause of autism.

The scientists conducted an additional check on the blood brothers and sisters of the participants. They compared children with a congenital TORCH infection with their brothers and sisters who did not have the infection. The connection with autism and intellectual development disorders was preserved. This means that the obtained results cannot be explained only by peculiarities common to members of one family.

The authors emphasize the importance of preventing such infections during pregnancy. As one of the examples they cite rubella: after the introduction of a national vaccination program in Sweden the incidence practically came to naught. For the prevention of toxoplasmosis the researchers recommend avoiding raw and insufficiently cooked meat, washing vegetables thoroughly and taking care when in contact with cat excrement.

Thus, the study shows a connection between infection of the fetus with TORCH infections and subsequent developmental disorders, but does not assert that it is precisely these infections that are the cause of autism in most cases.

Inside the Earth there is a “tug of war” because of which the length of the day changes

The length of the day seems unchanging only in everyday life. In fact the speed of the planet's rotation constantly fluctuates: over decades the length of the day can change by several milliseconds. A new study shows that one of the main roles in this process is played by what happens deep inside the Earth.

Researchers from the University of Alberta created a mathematical model that describes the interaction of the Earth's core and mantle. It turned out that the changes in the length of the day are best explained by the struggle of three forces: gravitational, magnetic and mechanical.
The Earth's core is a metal ball about the size of Mars. It consists predominantly of iron and is divided into two parts. The inner core is solid, and the outer one is molten and constantly moving. The inner part can rotate a little faster or slower than the rest of the planet. The interaction of these layers is what changes the speed of the Earth's rotation.

One of the acting forces is created by the movement of the molten outer core. Its flows mechanically act on the boundary between the core and the mantle — as a river flows around stones. The second force is connected with the Earth's magnetic field and arises thanks to the movement of molten metal in the outer core. Magnetic forces act on the iron-rich sections of the mantle, thereby changing the rotation of the planet. But the main force, according to the new model, is gravity.

Dense sections of the inner core are attracted to the denser regions of the mantle. Because of this the inner core, as it were, strives to occupy a certain position relative to the surrounding layer. However, the molten outer core constantly moves predominantly and gradually pulls the inner core out of this position. Then gravity again begins to return it back.

The result is a kind of cosmic tug of war. Gravity pulls the inner core in one direction, and magnetic and mechanical forces act toward it. It is precisely the combination of these processes, according to the scientists' calculations, that best corresponds to the observed changes in the length of the Earth's day.

To check the model the researchers used data on the rotation of the inner core. Previous observations of seismic waves showed that since the 1960s it first gradually rotated faster than the rest of the planet, and approximately after 2010 it slowed down. The new work helps to connect these changes with the processes inside the Earth. At the same time the scientists obtained not only an explanation of the small fluctuations in the length of the day, but also additional information about how materials behave in the planet's interior.

For a human the difference of a few milliseconds is imperceptible. But for geophysicists such tiny changes are an important clue. From them one can reconstruct the processes occurring at a depth of thousands of kilometers, where we are not yet capable of getting directly.