分类： science

A one-of-a-kind dinosaur skeleton, once misclassified as a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, has shattered pre-auction estimates to sell for a staggering $47.3 million at a Sotheby’s New York auction on Tuesday. Nicknamed “Jodi”, the 10-foot-tall mounted specimen belongs to the newly validated genus Nanotyrannus, a slender, blade-toothed Late Cretaceous carnivore that roamed prehistoric North America alongside T. rex roughly 67 million years ago.
The auction far outstripped pre-sale projections of a $9 million minimum bid, unfolding over a dramatic 12-minute bidding war between six competing parties, whose final winner has chosen to remain anonymous. The sale comes just 12 months after a landmark peer-reviewed research paper formally confirmed Nanotyrannus as a distinct genus, ending decades of paleontological debate over whether small tyrannosaur fossils were merely adolescent T. rex individuals. Jodi is only the third nearly complete Nanotyrannus skeleton known to global science, and the very first specimen of the newly recognized genus ever to be offered on the public market.
Composed of 191 well-preserved fossil elements including a virtually intact, exquisitely preserved skull, the skeleton was first unearthed in Montana’s famous Hell Creek Formation by local rancher Jodi Pierson, for whom the fossil is named, before being fully excavated by veteran commercial paleontologist Clayton Phipps – the same researcher who discovered the iconic “Dueling Dinosaurs” specimen just 8 miles away in 2006. That fossil, which captures a Nanotyrannus and Triceratops locked in apparent combat, formed the core of the 2023 research led by paleontologists Lindsay Zanno and James Napoli that formally separated Nanotyrannus from the T. rex lineage. Prior to the genus’s official classification, Jodi was even displayed publicly at London’s 2023 Frieze Masters art fair, marketed at the time as a young T. rex.
The record-breaking sale follows Sotheby’s $50.1 million auction of a full T. rex skeleton nicknamed “Gus” last July, a transaction that ignited fierce ongoing debate within the global paleontology community about the ethics of high-value private fossil sales. Leading researchers including University of Edinburgh paleontologist and Jurassic Park scientific consultant Professor Steve Brusatte have sharply criticized the trend, warning that skyrocketing price tags place world-class scientifically critical specimens far out of the budget range of nearly all public museums and academic institutions. Brusatte compared the scenario to the Mona Lisa being locked away in a private collector’s vault, noting that losing access to such rare specimens would deal severe harm to both public science education and ongoing paleontological research, calling Jodi’s sale “harrowing” due to the risk the specimen could disappear from public view entirely.
Not all paleontologists share this unreservedly critical stance, however. University of Portsmouth researcher Megan Jenkins, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, acknowledged the immense labor, time, and significant financial investment required to locate, excavate, and prepare high-quality dinosaur specimens, and noted that the vast majority of high-value auctioned fossils eventually end up in public museum collections over time, rather than being permanently sequestered in private storage. The heated debate comes as a new wave of ultra-high-net-worth collector interest in rare paleontological artifacts drives auction values to unprecedented heights, reshaping the longstanding norms of fossil access and curation for the scientific community.

For nearly 90 years, the disappearance of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart has captivated researchers, historians, and aviation enthusiasts around the world, spawning dozens of competing theories about where her plane went down. One of the most persistent hypotheses placed her wreckage on the remote Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro, part of the Republic of Kiribati, and a new on-site investigation has now closed one chapter of the search — while leaving the larger mystery very much open.

The latest search began in 2020, when analysts working with the Archaeological Legacy Institute spotted a bright, distinct object on satellite imagery of a lagoon off Nikumaroro’s Taraia Peninsula. Dubbed the Taraia Object, the formation appeared to match the rough size and shape of aircraft wreckage resting in shallow coastal waters. Follow-up reviews of historical archives even confirmed the object had been visible in aerial photography of the area dating as far back as 1938, just one year after Earhart’s disappearance, further fueling excitement that the long-sought answer had finally been found.

Leading the investigation was a team of researchers headed by Purdue University, a key institutional partner in efforts to solve the Earhart case. After a five-day sea voyage to reach the remote atoll, the team faced an additional setback: rough ocean swells and strong gusty winds forced them to remain anchored offshore for several days, delaying their on-site search. Once conditions calmed, the researchers spent four days working on the peninsula’s sandspit, examining the site of the satellite anomaly up close.

When the team reached the target area, they discovered that much of the formation that had appeared on satellite imagery had already broken apart and been washed out to sea by tidal action. All that remained was a single, Y-shaped segment of debris. After on-site analysis, the research team concluded that the object was never Earhart’s plane at all. Instead, it is most likely an accumulation of large drift trees that washed onto the sandspit and became lodged over time.

Despite this disappointing result, project director Rick Pettigrew, who spoke to reporters from near the investigation site, remains optimistic that the mystery will one day be solved. “This mystery has been ongoing for 90 years and the mystery continues,” Pettigrew said. “The island has been holding on to its secrets and it continues to do so. I think eventually someone will find conclusive evidence here.”

To recap the case that has gripped the world for generations: In 1937, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan set out to complete the first ever circumnavigation of the globe by air. By the time the pair reached Lae, Papua New Guinea, they had already completed a successful journey across the United States, South America, Africa, and South Asia. Their next planned leg was a flight to the tiny, uninhabited coral atoll of Howland Island, roughly 400 miles northeast of Nikumaroro, where they planned to refuel before continuing on to Hawaii and ultimately back to California. But contact with Earhart and her twin-engine Lockheed Electra was lost mid-flight, and no confirmed trace of the plane or its crew has ever been found.

One of the leading modern theories of the disappearance holds that Earhart and Noonan drifted off course while searching for Howland Island, and ultimately landed their damaged plane on Nikumaroro, where they survived for a time as castaways before dying. Dozens of archaeological expeditions have explored the atoll over the past 30 years searching for evidence to support this claim, but so far, no conclusive proof of Earhart’s presence there has been confirmed. The latest investigation closes off one promising lead, but the search for answers continues.

Nearly 90 years after American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart vanished without a trace mid-flight during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe, a new archaeological expedition has arrived at a remote Pacific atoll to investigate a potential clue that could finally crack one of history’s most enduring unsolved mysteries.

The joint team, composed of researchers from the Archaeological Legacy Institute (ALI) and Purdue University, reached Nikumaroro Island — part of the island nation of Kiribati — on Monday, following a five-day, 830-nautical-mile journey across the South Pacific aboard the research vessel *Marin Mainiku*. This trip marks the first authorized expedition to Nikumaroro in seven years, and the first formal investigation of the site’s Taraia Peninsula in more than 15 years, according to Purdue University records.

At the center of the expedition’s work is the so-called Taraia Object, a feature first identified on the edge of Nikumaroro’s lagoon via satellite imagery back in 2020. The formation has sparked fierce debate among aviation historians and researchers: some experts argue it could be the long-lost wreckage of Earhart’s Electra twin-engine plane, while others remain deeply skeptical, suggesting it is nothing more than a naturally fallen, collapsed tree trunk.

Expedition leader Rick Pettigrew framed the investigation as a long-awaited milestone for the decades-long search for answers. “It is incredibly rewarding to be this close to completing our inspection of the Taraia Object and potentially solving, at long last, the outstanding mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan more than 89 years ago,” Pettigrew wrote in a Monday blog post updating the public on the expedition’s progress.

The five-day investigation is not without its significant challenges, however. Two major threats have the potential to hamper the team’s work: a record-strength El Niño climate event, and the island’s population of giant coconut crabs — the largest land-dwelling invertebrates on Earth.

El Niño has already disrupted regional weather patterns, and researchers warn shifting conditions could limit daily access to the shore, with an ongoing east-to-west weather system threatening safe passage through the narrow reef channel the team plans to use to reach the peninsula. Marine archaeologist Michael Krivor noted that unsafe conditions in the channel could cut the expedition short or prevent researchers from reaching the object entirely.

For the team’s safety, crew members will not camp on the island overnight, instead returning to *Marin Mainiku* each evening — a rule driven in large part by the coconut crab population. Also called robber crabs, these nocturnal giants can grow to a leg span of up to one meter, weigh more than 4 kilograms, and lift loads as heavy as 28 kilograms. Best known for their ability to crack open whole coconuts, they also actively hunt live prey including small mammals and seabirds.

This is not the first time coconut crabs have been linked to the Earhart mystery. One long-running theory suggests the aviator and her navigator survived an emergency landing on Nikumaroro, only to be killed by the giant crabs, who dragged their remains into underground burrows. A 2018 experiment by the International Group of Historical Aircraft Recovery confirmed the crabs are fully capable of this: researchers used pig carcasses to demonstrate the species can strip flesh from bone and drag remains to their burrows in less than two weeks.

To reach the Taraia Object, the team will follow a carefully laid timeline. On Tuesday, crew members will navigate the narrow reef channel blasted into the atoll by the British in 1963, the final year the island hosted a permanent human settlement, to prepare for shore landing. Their first full day on the island will be dedicated to moving research equipment ashore, clearing dense overgrown vegetation, and establishing a base of operations, with one crew tasked with cutting a new access trail through the island’s jungle. On Wednesday, the team will shift focus to systematic evidence gathering on the Taraia Peninsula, using magnetic detection tools to locate buried metal debris consistent with plane wreckage. Finally, researchers will deploy specialized dredging equipment to shift sediment in the shallow lagoon, where the Taraia Object sits just 10 feet from shore in as little as five feet of water at low tide, to conduct a full visual inspection of the formation.

Earhart’s disappearance has captivated the public since 1937. By the time she and her navigator Fred Noonan departed Lae, Papua New Guinea, on July 2 that year, she had already completed the majority of her round-the-world journey, flying successfully from California across South America, Africa, and Southern Asia. The pair planned to stop at tiny, uninhabited Howland Island, just 300 nautical miles from Nikumaroro, to refuel before the final leg to Hawaii. But the plane never arrived, vanishing without a trace over the central Pacific. The official U.S. government conclusion holds that the plane experienced radio communication failures, the pair became lost while searching for Howland Island, and eventually ran out of fuel before crashing into the open ocean. For decades, however, alternative theories have persisted, many centering on the possibility that Earhart and Noonan crashed on Nikumaroro and died as castaways.

On October 6, 2026, the Nobel Committee announced at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute that three pioneering researchers from the United States and Germany will share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their transformative work founding the field of optogenetics.

US psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Deisseroth shares the honor with German scientists Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel, a trio whose collaborative research has opened an unprecedented new window into understanding brain function, upending decades of limited knowledge about how neural circuits drive thought, behavior, and disease. The 900,000 pound (12 million Swedish krona) prize recognizes the team’s role in laying the foundation for a new era in neuroscience, a breakthrough that the Nobel Assembly says has fundamentally reshaped the global scientific approach to studying the brain.

The core of the trio’s achievement is the development of optogenetics: a revolutionary technique that uses light to precisely control the electrical activity of individual cells, most notably neurons in the brain. The story of the breakthrough began in the early 2000s, when Hegemann and Nagel identified channelrhodopsin, a unique light-sensitive protein found naturally in algae. Deisseroth later built on this discovery, successfully demonstrating how channelrhodopsin could be used to turn specific neural circuits on and off in the brains of living mice.

Before optogenetics, the inner mechanisms that govern human memory, emotion, behavior, and basic bodily function remained largely a black box for neuroscientists, who lacked tools to isolate the role of specific neural circuits in real time. Today, the technique allows researchers to selectively activate or deactivate individual neuron groups, enabling them to trace exactly which circuits contribute to specific memories, mood states, and behaviors linked to a wide range of neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Per Svenningsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, emphasized that optogenetics has delivered on a long-unattainable goal for brain science: “Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of.” Beyond mapping brain activity, the technique has also revealed critical new insights into how the central nervous system interacts with other key organ systems across the body, including the heart and gastrointestinal tract.

The impact of the breakthrough extends far beyond basic neuroscience research, with early translational work already yielding promising results in clinical medicine. Currently, researchers are conducting clinical trials testing optogenetics as a treatment to restore vision for people living with blindness caused by retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that destroys the eye’s light-sensitive rods and cones. By inserting the light-sensitive algal protein into damaged regions of the eye, and pairing the treatment with specialized light-emitting glasses, patients have already regained partial functional vision, marking the first successful steps toward bringing optogenetics from the lab to widespread clinical use.

In a statement following the announcement, the three laureates described receiving the prize as “absolutely wonderful,” adding that it was a special honor to share the accolade with long-time collaborators and friends. The Nobel Assembly noted that the field continues to advance at a rapid pace, with new discoveries emerging daily that bring the global research community closer to solving one of humanity’s oldest great mysteries: how the complex, extraordinary human brain actually works.

In another milestone for private human spaceflight, Elon Musk-led aerospace firm SpaceX has successfully sent a four-person international crew into orbit, bound for the International Space Station (ISS) for a half-year scientific mission. The company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from its historic launch pad at NASA’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying a crew consisting of two NASA astronauts from the United States, one Russian cosmonaut, and one Canadian Space Agency mission specialist. Once the crew docks with the ISS, they will join the currently orbiting expedition team to conduct more than 200 planned scientific experiments across a range of disciplines, from human biology in microgravity to materials science and Earth observation. This mission marks the latest in a series of ongoing crew rotation missions facilitated by SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which has supported continuous human presence on the orbital outpost following the retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet in 2011. The international composition of the crew also highlights the long-standing global collaboration that underpins the ISS program, even amid shifting geopolitical tensions, demonstrating how space exploration remains a common ground for international scientific cooperation. The crew will stay aboard the ISS for approximately six months before returning to Earth via a splashdown off the coast of Florida.