Physicists have identified new forms of γ-ray radiation created inside thunderclouds, and shown that levels of γ-ray production are much higher on Earth than previously thought.

Scientists already knew about two types of γ-ray phenomena in thunderclouds — glows that last as long as a minute and high-intensity flashes that come and go in only a few millionths of a second. Now, researchers have identified that these both occur more frequently than expected, and that previously undetected γ-ray types exist, including flickering flashes that share characteristics of the other two types of radiation.

The researchers hope that understanding more about these mysterious phenomena could help explain what initiates lightning, which often follows these γ-ray events.

Research Article: Østgaard et al.

Research Article: Marisaldi et al.

Nature: Mysterious form of high-energy radiation spotted in thunderstorms

Ancient arrowheads reveal that Europe's oldest battle likely featured warriors from far afield, and why the dwarf planet Ceres’s frozen ocean has deep impurities.

Research Highlight: Bronze Age clash was Europe’s oldest known interregional battle

Research Highlight: A dwarf planet has dirty depths, model suggests

Researchers have published the most complete wiring diagram, or ‘connectome’ of the fruit fly’s brain, which includes nearly 140,000 neurons and 54.5 million connections between nerve cells.

The map, made from the brain of a single female fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), reveals over 8,400 neuron types in the brain, and has enabled scientists to learn more about the brain and how it controls aspects of fruit fly behaviour.

The FlyWire connectome: neuronal wiring diagram of a complete fly brain

Nature: Largest brain map ever reveals fruit fly's neurons in exquisite detail

How researchers created an elusive single-electron bond between carbon atoms, and why bigger chatbots get over-confident when answering questions.

Nature: Carbon bond that uses only one electron seen for first time: ‘It will be in the textbooks’

Nature: Bigger AI chatbots more inclined to spew nonsense — and people don't always realize

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The world's fastest supercomputer, known as Frontier, is located at the Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. This machine churns through data at record speed, outpacing 100,000 laptops working simultaneously.

With nearly 50,000 processors, Frontier was designed to push the bounds of human knowledge. It's being used to create open-source large language models to compete with commercial AI systems, simulate proteins for drug development, help improve aeroplane engine design, and more.

This is an audio version of our Feature: A day in the life of the world’s fastest supercomputer

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Children with Down’s syndrome have a 150-fold increased risk of developing leukaemia than those without the condition. Now, an in-depth investigation has revealed that changes to genome structures in fetal liver stem-cells appear to be playing a key role in this increase.

Down’s syndrome is characterised by cells having an extra copy of chromosome 21. The team behind this work saw that in liver stem-cells — one of the main places blood is produced in a growing fetus — this extra copy results in changes in how DNA is packaged in a nucleus, opening up areas that are prone to mutation, including those known to be important in leukaemia development.

The researchers hope their work will be an important step in understanding and reducing this risk in children with Down’s syndrome.

Research Article: Marderstein et al.

News and Views: Childhood leukaemia in Down’s syndrome primed by blood-cell bias

How taking pints of beer off the table lowers alcohol consumption, and a small lizard’s ‘scuba gear’ helps it stay submerged.

Research Highlight: A small fix to cut beer intake: downsize the pint

Research Highlight: This ‘scuba diving’ lizard has a self-made air supply

How tiny crustaceans use ‘smell’ to find their home cave, and how atomic bomb X-rays could deflect an asteroid away from a deadly Earth impact.

Science: In the dark ocean, these tiny creatures can smell their way home

Nature: Scientists successfully ‘nuke asteroid’ — in a lab mock-up

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