Remains Of One Of The Largest Christian Monasteries Was Discovered

Egypt often brings to mind visions such as the Sphinx, Tutankhamun’s iconic gold death mask, or pyramids casting long shadows over the Giza Plateau, but life went on after the last of the pharaonic dynasties vanished. It was the dawn of a new era.

After the advent of Christianity, religious beliefs in Egypt shifted, and with it, the megalithic statues of gods from the old pantheon gave way to new churches and monasteries rising up from the sands. More of them are now being unburied.

After the rule of the Ptolemies ended, Egypt found itself in a tumultuous transitional period. Christianity was brought to the former land of the pharaohs by Saint Mark the Evangelist around 49 C.E. Christianity became more widespread under the leadership of Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria almost 200 years later, though its followers faced persecution under Roman rule until Emperor Constantine declared it the state religion in 312 C.E.

Theological scholars flocked to Alexandria for centuries, though competition with the newer Christian capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul), along with controversies over religious doctrine, led to Egyptian Coptic Christians breaking from the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church during the 5th century C.E. Coptic art and culture continued to flourish despite the rift.

While excavating at the Al-Ruba’iyat area of the Al-Qalaye site in Hosh Issa, archaeologists discovered what is now thought to be one of Egypt’s oldest monasteries, dating back to the 5th century.

Monasteries were beginning to turn into epicenters of Christian learning, opening their doors to visitors, and moving away from the sometimes-brutal asceticism followed by early monks, which demanded isolation and extreme discipline. As archaeologists dug through the dust and sand, the remains of the monastery at Al-Qalaye revealed thirteen rooms divided by architectural arches, including individual and communal spaces for monks, kitchen and storage areas, and larger halls used for teaching and hospitality. The archaeological team also noticed that there had been several additions to the structure as its evolution continued over time.

Earlier archaeological missions at the site had also found clusters of monastic cells or "manshubiyat" along with service buildings and pottery. The monastery bustled with activity in its prime.

Led by archaeologist Samir Rizq Abdel-Hafez, the excavation project found a spacious hall on the north end, with stone benches decorated in plant motifs, which were probably used for receiving guests. At the heart of the complex was a sacred prayer room marked by a limestone cross.

Bones of birds and other animals, seashells, and pottery vessels meant for food storage showed what the monks ate on a daily basis. The monks spent their entire lives practicing devotion. They were also likely buried on site, as evidenced by a headstone carved from limestone with a Coptic inscription reading "Apa Kyr, son of Shenouda."

The mission has also yielded many preserved remnants of Coptic art, including walls covered in murals of monks framed by intricate braided patterns that had been painted in red, black, and white shades that faded over the centuries. There was more inspiration from the natural world on display in images of gazelles surrounded by foliage and distinctive flowers with eight petals. Fragments of ceramics are painted with similar motifs, and deeper digging exposed a marble column along with capitals and bases of other columns.

Hisham El-Leithy, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, sees the monastery as giving further insights into Coptic art and architecture. Another mission from the Council previously came upon an older architectural complex from the period when Egypt segued from paganism to Christianity.

Located at the Ain al-Kharab site, it held ruins from the city of Kharga Oasis, including churches, cemeteries, and residential buildings, as well as a mural of Christ healing a sick person. Both the city and the monastery will continue to tell us more about early Coptic culture and art as more structures and artifacts are discovered.

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Japanese Biologist Cloned A Mouse And Cloned The Clone

Creating exact copies or doppelgängers of creatures in a lab was largely the stuff of science fiction until 1996, when Dolly the Sheep became the first mammal ever to be cloned. But while speculations arose about the potential pitfalls of generating hordes of clones, as a team of Japanese researchers found out, those issues sometimes take on a different form than expected.

Two decades ago, Teruhiko Wakayama (a biologist from the University of Yamanashi) and his team of researchers cloned a single female mouse. Then, they cloned the clone, and the clone’s clone.

With initially promising results, they continued to clone from each successive generation of clones for a total of 58 generations (not including the original mouse). But problems began to rear their heads after generation 25—when re-clones from one of the later generations mated with male mice, egg fertilization succeeded, but embryos degenerated. It turned out that, despite having no abnormalities in appearance or lifespan, more and more mutations had begun to accumulate in the DNA of each successive generation. Eventually, the combined effects of the mutations became lethal.

Creatures that clone themselves repeatedly do exist in nature, so it’s not impossible to do. Hydra and coral polyps are just two examples of animals that can self-replicate, but as it turns out, mammals (which rely on sexual reproduction) are a different story. For many years, it was thought that cloning could potentially be used to produce superior domesticated animals en masse, or bring endangered species back from the brink. But after seeing what happened with the 1,200 mice they cloned, the researchers behind the 20-year experiment aren’t so sure.

"[Mammal cloning] issues are believed to stem from failures in "reprogramming" the donor nucleus to reset the epigenetic state of differentiated somatic cells to that of a fertilized embryo; this occurs not directly due to DNA abnormalities, but the detailed mechanisms responsible remain unclear," they said in a study recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Given that genetic abnormalities don’t appear in successive generations of cloned plants, non-mammalian vertebrates cloned through parthenogenesis, or less complex cloning animals (such as hydras), researchers wanted to see if mammals could also be cloned indefinitely.

The first rounds of results looked hopeful — after serial cloning trails began in 2005, DNA sequencing and analysis of duplicated mice revealed no differences between early and later generations of clones. But that began to change after generation 27, when genetic abnormalities began to negatively affect fertility. By the 58th generation, the cloned mice died the day after birth.

There may have been several causes behind the abnormalities that arose in later generations. One suspect was Trichostatin A (TSA), which enhances nuclear reprogramming—a process that resets cells to have the differentiation abilities of pluripotent stem cells without changing any of their nuclear DNA. While the researchers suspected that TSA lost its effectiveness as generations progressed, analysis showed otherwise.

Epigenetic abnormalities—changes to gene expression that switch genes on and off without affecting the structure of the DNA sequence — were another possibility, but no such abnormalities were found. Embryos of mice that were cloned in vitro also showed nothing abnormal in their development.

It was only when the researchers sequenced the genomes of re-cloned mice from different generations that they found mutations. Disastrously, by the final generation, so many background mutations had accumulated that the clones were no longer viable. While many re-cloned mice with multiple mutations were able to live out healthy lives (and some even bred with mice that were not clones), successive cloning ultimately backfired. These results raise serious doubts about whether cloning can provide a way to save endangered mammal species.

"Since the birth of Dolly the sheep, cloning technology has been envisioned for diverse applications," the researchers said. "Yet, these findings demonstrate that practical application of cloning of mammals requires a deeper appreciation of these biological constraints, warranting further research, and reaffirm the evolutionary inevitability that sexual reproduction is indispensable for the long-term survival of mammalian species."

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There's A Massive Freshwater Reservoir Hidden Beneath The Great Salt Lake

Utah’s Great Salt Lake is one of the most important bodies of water in the western U.S. For one, the 1,000-square-mile lake is a critical layover for the Pacific Flyway, with some 12 million birds from more than 300 species spending time in its waters every year.

Also, the lake adds moisture to passing storms, which eventually dump their contents onto the mountains that lie to the east, where ski slopes reign supreme. According to the Utah Division of Water Resources, the state receives nearly 95 percent of its freshwater from snowpack.

Unfortunately, it’s no secret that the Great Salt Lake is struggling. While its 1,000-square-mile expanse might sound impressive on paper, it’s less than half the size that the lake was in 1986, and the salt water’s absence has exposed nearby Salt Lake City to increased levels of toxic dust.

However, the lake’s struggles have also revealed something else that scientists didn’t expect. In recent years, circular mounds covered in 15-foot-tall thickets of reeds have appeared along the dried-out bed of an area known as Farmington Bay, suggesting that at least some level of groundwater lies beneath the lake.

To understand what exactly has fueled these reed-filled mounds, a team of geophysicists from the University of Utah conducted airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveys in order to X-ray structures beneath Farmington Bay. They found that freshwater permeates the sediments beneath the hypersaline lakebed up to four kilometers (or roughly 13,000 feet) deep into the ground. The results of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

"We were able to answer the question of how deep this potential reservoir is, and what its spatial extent is beneath the eastern lake margin," Michael Zhdanov, the lead author of the study from the University of Utah, said in a press statement. "If you know how deep, you know how wide, you know the porous space, you can calculate the potential freshwater volume."

To accurately capture this volume, Zhdanov and his team hired a geophysical crew to conduct 10 east-west surveys, covering 154 miles in total. Using a helicopter outfitted with electromagnetic equipment, these surveys accurately captured the conductivity of the overlying brine, as well as the resistive fresh water that lies beneath.

Stitching together this data into a comprehensive map showing the saline-freshwater boundary, the researchers noticed that the phragmite (reed) mounds appeared directly where freshwater pushed through the briney layer of the lake.

By combining this data with additional magnetic measurements, Zhdanov and his team successfully peered deeper beneath Farmington Bay, confirming that the freshwater may extend as far as four kilometers down.

"There are beneficial effects of this groundwater that we need to understand before we go extracting more of it," Bill Johnson, a co-author of the study from the University of Utah, said in a press statement. "A first-order objective is to understand whether we could use this freshwater to wet dust hotspots and douse them in a meaningful way without perturbing the freshwater system too much."

For now, scientists can’t say for certain if this newly discovered freshwater reservoir is the exception or the rule for the rest of the Great Salt Lake. Future aerial surveys will need to expand beyond this tiny sliver in order to capture the full extent of the lake’s freshwater treasure.

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Japan's Effective Way In Dealing With The Diaper Problem

Our planet has a big diaper problem. Families in the United States toss out over 1 trillion of the soiled garments every year, making it the third most common consumer product piling up in landfills. They also aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Thanks to their plastic polymer components, most diapers take upwards of 500 years to fully decompose.

As far as a solution to our big number two problem, there are two main lines of thinking. On one hand, it’s important to promote the development and use of reusable alternatives made with eco-friendly materials. At the same time, it’s vital to find ways to recycle existing disposable diapers.

While there have been promising strides in both areas over the last few years, engineers in Japan say they now have an even more efficient method for getting the most out of dirty diapers. According to AFP, it’s even got the support of Unicharm, one of Japan’s leading hygiene product manufacturers.

The new technique is piggybacking on a strategy that’s already proven successful in the southern Japanese municipalities of Shibushi and Osaki.

About 25 years ago, the region’s roughly 40,000 residents realized that their local landfill was quickly running out of space. After dramatically expanding their recycling, Shibushi and Osaki now only toss about 20 percent of their household waste into the trash. At four times the average Japanese home’s recycling rate, experts now say the municipalities’ nearby landfill can remain open for another 40 years.

In 2024, Shibushi and Osaki included dirty diapers in their recycling program. Once collected, the materials are cleaned, shredded, and separated into its principal components of plastic, fabric pulp, and super-absorbent polymer (SAP). Unicharm could already turn these materials into other hygienic products like toilet paper, but a new ozone treatment designed to bleach, sterilize, and deodorize the pulp is widening the possibilities even further.

Meanwhile, the company is finalizing a method to incorporate the SAP and plastic waste into new diapers that it aims to roll out by 2028.

Although its recycled products are only available in a handful of test markets and cost about 10 percent more than standard options, they may be able to cut down on production’s water requirements. Unicharm also hopes to integrate their diaper program with 20 municipalities within the next decade.

While it’s true that soiled diapers are an issue around the world, they are particularly problematic in Japan. The nation is home to the world’s oldest average population, with an estimated 10 percent of residents over the age of 80.

"Demand for baby diapers is falling. But a growing number of elderly people wear diapers, and more recently, even pets do too," Unicharm president Takahisa Takahara explained in a recent interview. "If we can transform the sense of guilt ordinary consumers may feel about using disposable products into something positive, and make using recycled products the norm in society, it will become economically viable."

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Artemis II Only Need 3 Minutes To Reach Space

Artemis II is currently ready for its historic lunar mission. The massive rocket and Orion spacecraft are now sitting at the Launch Complex 39B after an hours-long, four-mile journey from the assembly building, where they underwent final checks.

This was not NASA's first rollout for the Artemis II mission, but NASA hopes it will be the last. Mission planners are initially targeting an 1 April 2026 launch window. Once ignition starts, it'll take about three minutes to reach NASA's defined edge of space, and eight minutes to reach orbit.

The launch requires 8.8 million pounds of thrust, which is about the same output as 326 F-16 fighter jet engines. Around one minute into ascent, the rocket throttles down for about 25 seconds at Max Q, the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure, as it pushes through the dense lower atmosphere.

Once clear, Orion will continue to accelerate, reaching nearly 3,200 miles per hour. At about 2:09 into the flight, the solid rocket boosters detach before Orion reaches the edge of space.

The next phase is where the power of the shuttle era kicks in. Four RS-25 engines, refurbished from the shuttle program, will push the spacecraft up to 17,500 mph, the minimum speed needed to maintain a stable orbit around Earth. This phase spans from the edge of space into orbit, nearly 100 miles above Earth. Most of the thrust is pushing it forward, not up.

As the crew enters microgravity just eight minutes into their 10-day journey, the RS-25 engines will shut down, and the crew will become weightless. The spacecraft will coast in orbit for about 24 hours, waiting for the precise moment when Orion's Orbital Maneuvering System Engine (OMS-E) fires the translunar injection (TLI) burn that sends Orion toward the moon.

The crew will travel more than 230,000 miles to the moon, taking about three to four days to reach its orbit. The Artemis II mission doesn't call for landing. Instead, the crew will stay about 4,000 to 6,000 miles above the surface because NASA wants to test whether Orion can safely support a crew in deep space while also giving them an opportunity to practice navigation and control systems. Once it rounds the moon, Orion will head home, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego about ten days after liftoff.

NASA has had to delay the mission several times to make sure the spacecraft remains intact and operational during its early phases. The most recent Artemis II delay was caused by a helium pressurization issue. There's a lot on the line because Orion will carry four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972.

Aboard Orion are Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Jeremy Hansen, who will be the first woman, first person of color, and first Canadian, respectively, to reach the vicinity of the moon. NASA veteran Reid Wiseman will lead.

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