Experts studied the world's longest-living people – and found something surprising about their drinking habits - BBC Science Focus Magazine

Parts of the Earth’s climate system can change abruptly once warming pushes them beyond critical thresholds. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the Amazon rainforest, coral reefs and major ocean currents are all among the systems containing potential climate tipping points. These climate systems are known as tipping elements, and research into them has expanded rapidly. But it has not expanded evenly. In a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, colleagues and I examined 20,736 scientific publications on 14 climate tipping elements published between 2000 and 2025. We wanted to know where scientific attention has accumulated, and whether the systems with relatively low estimated warming thresholds tend to receive more of it. An uneven research landscapeThe Greenland Ice Sheet dominates the studies we analysed. It appeared in 4,141 publications — 20 per cent of the entire dataset. By contrast, abrupt thaw of permafrost in boreal forests just below the Arctic appeared in just 139 papers, or 0.7 per cent. The North Atlantic subpolar gyre, a system of ocean circulation south of Greenland, accounted for 649 papers, or 3.1 per cent.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

Milky Way’s first microblazar candidate sits 12,000 light-years away, offering a rare ground-level lab for studying relativistic jetsA black hole 12,000 light-years away is firing a jet of plasma almost directly toward Earth. At that distance, no known or expected danger to Earth has been identified by the researchers or the institutions involved. What astronomers have actually found is rarer and more interesting than a threat. Researchers have identified IRAS 18293-0941 as a compelling candidate for the Milky Way’s first microblazar, a class of object that gives astrophysicists a close-up laboratory for studying some of the most violent physics in the galaxy. What Astronomers FoundThe discovery centers on a binary system whose black hole expels plasma jets at close to three-quarters the speed of light, pointed almost directly toward Earth. The system pairs a hot, massive star with a black hole that completes a full orbit roughly every 11.38 days. Material drawn from the companion star feeds the black hole, and some of that matter gets expelled outward as opposing jets traveling at approximately three-quarters the speed of light. Terminology matters here.

Forests that stood on Mozambique's coast thousands of years ago now lie beneath shallow seas, and they have become fish-filled "peat reefs" with marine life comparable to coral reefs, researchers report in Scientific Reports. A team from the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies (BCSS) Ocean Observatory, led by Mario Lebrato, documented the submerged peat in the Bazaruto Archipelago in the Western Indian Ocean. BCSS, founded in 2017, describes itself as Africa's first permanent ocean observatory. Working with universities and institutions in the U. K., U. S. and Canada, the team believes it has carried out the first ecological study of peat reefs anywhere in the tropics. Old forests, new seafloorRadiocarbon dating shows the peat formed between about 300 and 5,000 years ago, and chemical analysis indicates it came mostly from coastal land plants and trees. Some samples contain up to 40% organic carbon by dry weight. Lebrato said the coastline has very little natural hard seabed, mostly shifting sand. As rising seas expose the old peat layers, they create rare solid habitat where marine life can settle, hide and feed.