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Simon Singh's exploration of mathematical proof – in particular Pierre de Fermat's last theorem – remains an absolute treasure, almost three decades after it was first published

Scientists have been debating for decades whether Mars once held a vast ocean covering a large part of its northern face. To prove the idea, they’ve been looking for a “bathtub ring” - a distinct, level shoreline that shows where water once stood. But, despite years of looking, they’ve only been able to find a very distorted potential shoreline whose height deviates by several kilometers - not exactly great evidence of a stable water level. But, according to a new paper in Nature from Abdallah Zaki and Michael Lamb of CalTech, what scientists should have been looking for wasn’t a bathtub ring, but a continental shelf.

Scientists have discovered unexpected water-ice clouds on a distant, Jupiter-like exoplanet, challenging current atmospheric models. By directly imaging Epsilon Indi Ab with the James Webb Space Telescope, they found less ammonia than expected—likely hidden by thick, patchy clouds. The finding reveals new layers of complexity in giant planets and shows how much we still have to learn.

A new AI-driven method called GOFLOW is turning weather satellite images into highly detailed maps of ocean currents. By tracking how temperature patterns shift over time, it can reveal fast-moving, small-scale currents that were previously impossible to observe directly. These currents are key to understanding climate, marine ecosystems, and carbon storage. The breakthrough works using satellites already in orbit, making it both powerful and cost-effective.

A mysterious magnetic material once thought to host an exotic “quantum spin liquid” has turned out to be something entirely different—and possibly just as intriguing. Scientists studying cerium magnesium hexalluminate found it showed the hallmark signs of this elusive quantum state, like a lack of magnetic order and a spread of energy states. But after closer inspection using neutron experiments, they discovered the behavior came from a delicate tug-of-war between two opposing magnetic forces.

A 150-year-old rule in geometry has been proven wrong. Mathematicians found two different doughnut-shaped surfaces that look identical when measured locally but are actually different overall. For decades, researchers suspected this might be possible but couldn’t prove it—until now. The breakthrough reshapes how mathematicians understand the relationship between local measurements and global form.

The search for life beyond Earth has traditionally focused on exoplanets orbiting Sun-like stars, which is a G-type star. However, low-mass stars, which are designated as K-type and M-type stars, have rapidly become a target for astrobiology, primarily due to their much longer lifetimes. This also means the habitable zone (HZ), which is the distance from a star where liquid water could exist, is much smaller than our solar system’s HZ, and is referred to as the liquid water habitable zone (LW-HZ). In contrast, another type of HZ that involves a star’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation potentially enabling life-harboring conditions is known as UV-HZ.

A final-stage trial has started of an mRNA vaccine against the bird flu strain infecting many animals – and occasionally people – worldwide

As we make our way through the latest solar maximum period, scholars and scientists are looking to similar events in the past to learn more about ancient bouts of solar activity. In particular, they want to know more about solar proton events (SPEs). These outbursts of high-energy particles get triggered by flares and coronal mass ejections.

Most of Titan’s surface is oddly flat and smooth, and it may be because it is coated by as much as a metre of fluffy organic material that snowed down from the icy moon’s thick atmosphere

Some seemingly simple sequences of multiplication and addition grow so quickly that they question the very foundations of mathematics. In doing so, they demand a whole new level of logic

Some seemingly simple sequences of multiplication and addition grow so quickly that they question the very foundations of mathematics. In doing so, they demand a whole new level of logic

New research examines 10 different types of global technological civilizations, how they govern themselves, how they use resources, and other factors, to determine which types may endure and which may be doomed to collapse. Simulations show that resource use plays the key role. The simulations also show which types of detectable technosignatures each may generate.

The ongoing conflict around the Strait of Hormuz has become a situation in game theory known as a war of attrition. The maths behind it can help explain what's going on, says Petros Sekeris

Yesterday involved a lot of walking, much of it with no destination, but I did get in 12,000 steps. Our plan was to take a two-hour walking architecture tour at 9:30, followed by a search for lunch. Unfortunately, my friend Tim got lost on our walk to the tour’s starting point, and we missed the whole tour. The plan then changed to an attempt to have lunch at the famous Mrs. Wilkes’ Dining Room, an all-you-can eat dining experience with great Southern food. But we missed that, too: we found we could change our architecture tour to 1 p.m., and so missed the first seating at Mrs. Wilkes’s.

So it was back to Ogelthorpe Square for the second tour attempt, which succeeded. In between, we grabbed a forgettable lunch at a Mexican restaurant and some excellent ice cream at a famous place.

First, the street where we’re staying again: Jones Street, which our tour guide called “The most beautiful street in Savannah”, lined as it is with oak trees and old houses:

And a portion of the long line at Mrs. Wilkes’. This is an every day occurrence as the place is famous and it doesn’t take reservations. After one seating, you have to wait until a table vacates (you sit with nine strangers) before you can get in, and we missed the first seating. In the meantime, Tim managed to get us on the 1 p.m. tour without paying extra.

After lunch, the first stop was Leopold’s Ice Cream, founded in 1919.  From Wikipedia:

In August 2004, Leopold’s moved to its present home on East Broughton Street, in Savannah’s downtown, where it is known for regularly having a line of customers waiting outside.  Stratton Leopold hired Hollywood production designer Dan Lomino to recreate his father’s soda fountain from the original store.  The ice cream is made, using the same recipes developed by his father and uncle, at a former wholesale florist building at 37th and Price Streets and brought over to the store as necessary.

Leopold’s signature flavor is tutti frutti, a favorite of Savannah’s Johnny Mercer, who worked in the shop as a ten-year old, sweeping floors,  while former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s favorite was the butter pecan. Carter wrote the foreword to Leopold’s Ice Cream: A Century of Tasty Memories, 1919–2019 (Melanie Bowden Simón, 2020).

The outside:

The inside; I didn’t see a soda fountain (perhaps this counter is the remains), but they had a gazillion flavors of ice cream. And yes, there was a line outside.

The newest flavors were also listed outside, and I immediately decided to get the top two, neither of which I’d had before:

My double scoop of lavender and cherry blossom (I ascertained first that they used real flowers). It was terrific: high in butterfat content, dense, and with very subtle flavors. Two scoops after lunch made me walk slower on the architecture tour!

Our first stop was the house of Juliette Gordon Low (1860-1927), who married an uncaring git named William Mackay Lowe, who often cheated on her.  During her long periods of being alone, Low learned metalworking, pottery, and other skills. She in fact made this wrought-iron gate at her house:

Low had a tumultuous life, and was almost cheated out of her inheritance as her husband left his money to his mistress. But the will was successfully contested, Low got the dosh, and looked for a worthy project to occupy her. Her project was to found the American Girl Guides, which became the Girl Scouts of America. Eighteen girls were enrolled, and the organization continues today.

Below is a photo from Wikipedia labeled, “Juliette Gordon Low (center) standing with two Girl Scouts, Robertine McClendon (left) and Helen Ross (right).” They’re all in Girl Scout uniform. We were told that every summer Girl Scouts from all over America make a pigrimate to visit Low’s house in Savannah.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons Here’s the tallest structure in downtown Savannah, the Independent Presbyterian Church, with a steeple that’s 227 feet and 6 inches tall. Now, by law, no structure in the town can be higher than four stories. They take their historic preservation seriously here.

The bench where Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) catches a floating white feather (symbolizing the “randomness” of fate) was located right next to the church above, but although the bench was a Hollywood prop and is no longer there, tourists still come in droves to be photographed at the bench site.  That famous scene is below:

A typical scene: Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) covered with Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), a flowering epiphyte that’s neither a moss nor Spanish.

Another epiphyte on an oak tree, Pleopeltis sp. or “resurrection fern,” The AI Google search explains the name:

The resurrection fern (Pleopeltis polypodioides) is named for its remarkable ability to survive long periods of drought by curling up its fronds, turning grey-grown, and appearing dead. When exposed to moisture—even just a little water—it rapidly uncurls and turns vibrant green within 24 hours, appearing to “resurrect”.

There is a drought in Savannah now, so you see the fern in its moribund state:

Below is the Green-Meldrim Mansion, built in 1853 and a National Historic Landmark.  The photo below the house explains its historical significance as Union General Sherman’s headquarters in Savannah (upper floor, two window to the right). While Sherman burned much of Georgia during his infamous 1864 March to the Sea that pretty much ended the Civil War, he spared Savannah because it expelled its Confederate troops and surrendered to the Union Army.

Click to enlarge:

One of the many buildings of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), one of the world’s most famous art schools.  Their philosophy is to have art taught by those who make art, not by academics, and I’m told they have a 99% placement rate of its graduates. The school is so wealthy that it participates in Savannah’s ongoing efforts to buy and refurbish historic buildings exactly as they were: a laborious and expensive effort.

In fact it occupies many of the buildings it’s bought and refurbished: this is Poetter Hall, the National Guard Armory in the late nineteenth century. It was SCAD’s first academic building.

A monument to (and burial place) of Casimir Pulaski, a Pole who moved to America and fought for the colonial army during the American Revolutionary War, saving George Washington’s life.  He’s a much beloved Polish-American.

Below is the Mercer House (now the Mercer House Museum), completed in 1868. It’s famous for reasons set out in Wikipedia:

The house was the scene of the 1981 killing of Danny Hansford by the home’s owner Jim Williams, a story that is retold in the 1994 John Berendt book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The house is also featured in the movie adaptation of the book, released three years later. Williams held annual Christmas parties at Mercer House, on the eve of the Savannah Cotillion Club‘s debutante ball, which were the highlight of many people’s social calendars.  Williams had an “in” box and an “out” box for his invitations, depending on whether or not the person was in Williams’s favor at the time.

The site of the killing was the room on the first floor whose window is bottome left.

Williams went through four trials for the killing, but no jury in Savannah would convict this popular man, so he esceped punishment, though he did spend some time in jail awaiting trial.

The house was build by the great-grandfather of lyricist Johnny Mercer (“Moon River,” “And the Angels Sing,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” etc.) but nobody named Mercer ever lived in the house.

Because of the movie “Forrest Gump,” Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and the subsequent movie, tourism in Savannah has increased by several-fold in recent years.

Another Historic District house. I can find its picture on Google Image Search, but not its name:

The Armstrong-Kessler Mansion, once owned by Jim Williams (see above): a lousy panoramic shot due to the absence of a viewpoint that didn’t endanger me. From Wikipedia:

The Armstrong Kessler Mansion (formerly known as Armstrong House) is a nationally significant example of Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style located in the Savannah Historic District. The structure was built between 1917 and 1919 for the home of Savannah magnate George Ferguson Armstrong (1868–1924). It was owned by the Armstrong family from 1919 to 1935. Afterward, the structure and grounds served as the campus of Armstrong Junior College. Threatened with demolition, the Historic Savannah Foundation purchased the Armstrong House along with five other threatened historic buildings from the college for $235,000 in 1967. Once saved, Historic Savannah Foundation sold the Mansion (and Hershel V. Jenkins Hall) at the exact purchase price to preservationist and antique dealer Jim Williams who restored it as his home. Eventually, both were sold to a major Savannah law firm as offices.

It’s HUGE and has lovely gardens that are not open to the public. Our guide got to see them, though, and showed us photos.

Finally, a Jew church in Savannah! Yes, a Gothic Revival style synagogue, the only one I know of.  Congregation Mickve Israel was founded in 1735, almost immediately after Savannah was settled. It was formed by Sephardic Jews and is now a reform temple . The building dates from 1876, and is built to look like a church as the Jews didn’t want to stick out in Christian Savannah.

A note from Wikipedia:

The Congregation was the first Jewish community to receive a letter from the President of the United States. In response to a letter sent by Levi Sheftall, the congregation’s president, congratulating George Washington on his election as the first President, Washington replied, “To the Hebrew Congregation of the City of Savannah, Georgia”:

… May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land – whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation – still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.

“That people whose God is Jehovah”—as opposed to those people whose God was the REAL God!

The plaque outside (click to enlarge).

We had no food ot note yesterday save the ice cream, but in about an hour from this writing we’re off to Mrs. Wilkes’s Boarding House for a gigantic Southern meal

Deep inside planets like Uranus and Neptune, scientists may have uncovered a bizarre new state of matter where atoms behave in unexpected ways. Advanced simulations suggest that carbon and hydrogen, under crushing pressures and scorching temperatures, can form a strange hybrid phase—part solid, part fluid—where hydrogen atoms spiral through a rigid carbon framework. This unusual “superionic” structure could reshape how heat and electricity flow inside these distant worlds, potentially helping explain their mysterious magnetic fields.

Deep inside planets like Uranus and Neptune, scientists may have uncovered a bizarre new state of matter where atoms behave in unexpected ways. Advanced simulations suggest that carbon and hydrogen, under crushing pressures and scorching temperatures, can form a strange hybrid phase—part solid, part fluid—where hydrogen atoms spiral through a rigid carbon framework. This unusual “superionic” structure could reshape how heat and electricity flow inside these distant worlds, potentially helping explain their mysterious magnetic fields.

The latest social media buzz involves a list of scientists who have either died or gone missing over the last three years, with the implication that there must be something nefarious going on. The FBI is now investigating these cases to see if there is any connection, and the White House appears to be taking the case seriously. James Comer of the House Oversight Committee said: “It does appear that there’s a high possibility that something sinister is taking place here. It’s very unlikely that this is a coincidence. Congress is very concerned about this. Our committee is making this one of our priorities now because we view this as a national security threat.”

My initial reaction to stories like this is – these kinds of things crop up all the time and they always turn out to be just coincidences, or not even that. Sometimes they are just stories fabricated out of increasingly distorted information, almost always to serve some conspiracy narrative. So my reaction is the same as if someone claims to have seen Bigfoot or an alien spacecraft – initial skepticism is fully warranted, but sure, I am happy to take an objective look. This may be a rare case when there is a genuine phenomenon going on, and in any case this is what activist skeptic do – take a deep dive when these stories emerge.

Let’s first review the basic facts as presented. Here are the 11 scientists currently on the list:

Amy Eskridge—Scientist reportedly researching anti-gravity technology. Died: 2022

Michael David Hicks—Research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; worked on the DART Project and Deep Space 1 mission. Died: July 2023.

Frank Maiwald—Principal researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Died: July 2024.

Anthony Chavez—Former employee at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Missing since: May 2025.

Monica Reza—Director of Materials Processing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Missing since: June 2025.

Melissa Casias—Administrative worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Missing since: June 2025.

Steven Garcia—Government contractor at a New Mexico facility for the Kansas City National Security Campus. Missing since: August 2025.

Nuno Loureiro—Director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Died: December 2025.

Carl Grillmair—Caltech astrophysicist who worked on NASA’s NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor missions. Died: February 2026.

William “Neil” McCasland—Retired U.S. Air Force major general. Missing since: February 27, 2026.

Jason Thomas—Pharmaceutical researcher. Found dead: March 2026.

From a scientific (specifically epidemiological) perspective what we have here is called an apparent cluster. We encounter these in medicine all the time. I remember when I was a neurology resident in the 1990s there was an apparent cluster of cases of CJD (mad cow disease) in New England where I was working (more specifically the Naugatuck Valley of Connecticut). I had a few cases myself, and it definitely seemed to be more than we would expect by chance. It is the job of the CDC to investigate all such apparent clusters and first determine if they are real. This is mostly a statistical analysis – is this just the random clumping that we expect in data, or are these cases truly outside the statistical noise? It was determined that the CJD cluster was not real – just statistical noise.

With a case like the dead or missing scientists, we can do a similar type of analysis. Is this really beyond what we would expect by chance? Remember that people are really good at pattern recognition, to the point that we see patterns that are not really there (a recognized phenomenon known as apophenia). We also feed these illusory patterns with other cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias, subjective validation, anomaly hunting, and post-hoc reasoning. In the case of apparent clusters like this, what that means is that people might decide after they see a potential data point that it is significant, rather than determining ahead of time what constitutes a “hit”. They also may stretch any definitions they are using to cast a deceptively wide net. Once an apparent cluster is noticed then confirmation bias kicks in. In today’s world this means that an army of social media “sleuths” can go hunting for any apparent cases that fit the cluster – again, casting a very wide net.

Without getting into the individual cases yet, the numbers do not seem impressive. Just eleven missing or dead over four years – but what’s the baseline? Well, there are about 2 million researchers in the US. There are about 25 deaths per million people per day in the US, that’s 50 scientists dying each day, or 73,000 scientists over a four year period. Finding 11 that have some vague connection does not seem unusual to me. I would be amazed if you couldn’t find far more convincing clusters than this one. When we look at the list this base-rate problem gets even worse. On the list is a retired US Air Force major general – not a scientist. There is also a government contractor, and an “employee” – the net widens. Also, we are including both deaths and people who have gone missing.

I should point out I am using numbers for the general population, which may not match the rate for scientists. However, since the list included non-scientists and people who have retired, the numbers are reasonable, at least to get a general idea of probability. But I also looked at CDC data – about 800,000 people in the US between 25 and 65 die each year, or 3,200,000 over a four year period. About 6% of the population work in the science field, which would be 192,000, or half that if you use a narrow definition of 3%, so close to the 73,000 figure I calculated the other way.

We can also look at the institutions – JPL has 4,500 employees. If we crunch the numbers, then we would expect about 41 JPL deaths each year, or 164 over four years. At the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the figure is 18,000 employees, or 164 people per year, 657 over four years.  Even if you want to be super conservative – even one tenth of these deaths at JPL and LANL would still be 82 deaths over four years – so again, the five on that list are not impressive. Given these numbers I think it is reasonable to conclude this is not a real cluster. This is far less than random noise, by at least two orders of magnitude.

The other approach to questions like this is to investigate the individual cases. The CDC, for example, would not only look at the numbers in a potential disease cluster, but would also review individual cases. If individuals with a foodborne illness all ate at the same restaurant, that would be significant, even if the overall numbers were not that impressive. So I don’t have a problem with the FBI doing some basic investigation so see if there is anything suspicious going on, but I would be really surprised if there were. It is not inherently implausible that one or more of these people were targeted because of their work or high security clearance, but looking through the list there doesn’t appear to be a real connection there.

Eskridge, for example, doesn’t seem to have anything connecting her to anyone else on the list, except her work was vaguely “sciencey”. I say this because she is on the list because she supported research into antigravity technology. I don’t think it’s fair to say she was an antigravity researcher. She had a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry, no masters or PhD. She has no published papers. She started the Institute for Exotic Science and had an interest in antigravity. This makes her more of a crank than anything else – give that it is extremely likely that antigravity is impossible (this goes way beyond this blog post, and perhaps I can do a deep dive on this later, but if you are interested just look it up). Until we have a theory of quantum gravity we have to keep the door slightly cracked open that maybe it’s not strictly impossible, but that is extremely unlikely. In any case, we don’t even have the beginning of a basic science to work from, and what we do have says it’s not possible. So unless you are a world-class theoretical physicist working specifically on uniting quantum mechanics and general relativity, your not worth killing if the goal is to prevent the emergence of antigravity technology.

Hicks worked on the DART project, the goal of which is to develop technology to deflect asteroids that might strike the Earth. Why is that connected to antigravity research? Why is that a threat to anyone? What is the connection to a pharmaceutical worker, a fusion researcher, or a materials scientist? Grillmair worked on the NEO telescope, which is a near Earth object scope, so there is a potential connection to DART, but not anyone else. The rest are mostly just administrators, workers, and employees, and one major general thrown in.

At first blush this seems to be a list of people put together by searching for anyone who has died or gone missing over the last few years with any vague connection to anything space related. I would be surprised if this turns into anything. I suspect that the FBI will do a preliminary investigation, find nothing, and the whole story will fade away. However, it will likely live on in the conspiracy subculture, morphing over time to make the details seem more impressive until there is a mostly false mythology about the dead scientists.

The post What’s With the Dead or Missing Scientists first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

A light-sensitive crystal is opening the door to a new era of “light-written” technology. Arsenic trisulfide can be reshaped and permanently altered using simple light, creating ultra-fine optical patterns without expensive manufacturing tools. Scientists even etched a nanoscale portrait of Einstein and high-density patterns that could act as secure optical signatures. This breakthrough could power everything from advanced sensors to next-generation AR devices.

Scientists have unveiled a breakthrough imaging method that can capture the hidden details of events unfolding in trillionths of a second. This new technique doesn’t just track how bright something is—it also reveals subtle structural changes that were previously invisible, all in a single shot. By effectively turning ultrafast phenomena into detailed “movies,” researchers can now watch plasma form, electrons move, and materials transform in real time.