A deadly ebola relative is surging after years in the shadows
Date: September 19, 2026 Source: Boston University Summary: A growing Bundibugyo virus outbreak is showing how a little-known relative of Ebola can become a major threat when diagnosis and treatment options are limited. Experts warn that preparing only for familiar pathogens could leave the world vulnerable when rare but deadly viruses suddenly reemerge. Share: Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email FULL STORY A rare Ebola relative is surging again, revealing dangerous gaps in how the world prepares for the next deadly outbreak. Credit: Shutterstock A growing outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo is drawing attention to a broader problem in global health: how to prepare for dangerous diseases that appear only rarely but can still cause deadly outbreaks. In a review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Boston University professor Nancy Sullivan argues that outbreak preparedness needs to extend beyond the infectious diseases that receive the most attention. A Rare Relative of Ebola Bundibugyo belongs to the filovirus family, the same group of viruses that includes the much better-known Ebola virus. Despite its potential severity, Bundibugyo has been linked to only two previously recognized outbreaks, one in Uganda in 2007 and another in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2012. The current outbreak, however, has already surpassed those earlier events in both its trajectory and scale. According to the WHO, 695 confirmed cases and 138 confirmed deaths had been reported in the DRC and Uganda as of June 11. Sullivan, a professor of biology and virology, immunology & microbiology at Boston University, explains that bringing an outbreak under control depends on several measures working quickly together. These include rapid diagnosis, isolating infected patients, tracing people who may have been exposed, strengthening infection control, and providing supportive medical care. Those steps become much harder when laboratory resources are limited. In settings where testing capacity is scarce, delays in confirming infections can give the virus more time to spread. A Severe Hemorrhagic Fever Bundibugyo can cause a severe form of hemorrhagic fever. Infection can trigger widespread inflammation, damage and failure of the cells lining blood vessels, uncontrolled bleeding, and failure of multiple organs. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids. That creates particular risks for family members, caregivers, and health workers, especially when patients are being treated in hospitals without adequate infection control. The 2026 outbreak was formally recognized after the death of a nurse. Another major challenge is that Bundibugyo can initially resemble several far more common illnesses.
A giant crater may reveal the origin of Mars’ doomed moon
Date: September 19, 2026 Source: Universe Today Summary: A massive crater on Mars’ moon Phobos may hide a dense region of compressed material that could reveal whether the moon is a captured asteroid or debris from an ancient impact on Mars. Japan’s upcoming MMX sample return mission could provide the measurements and physical evidence needed to solve the mystery. Share: Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email FULL STORY The large impact crater known as Stickney is the largest crater on the Martian moon Phobos. Some scientists believe the grooves and crater chains are related to the formation of Stickney, whereas others think they may have formed as a result of the ejecta from impacts on Mars that later collided with Phobos. The lineated textures on the walls of Stickney and other large craters are landslides formed from materials falling into the crater interiors. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Mars' innermost moon, Phobos, has puzzled planetary scientists for decades. One of the biggest unanswered questions is where it came from. Some researchers think Phobos is an asteroid that was captured by Mars, while others argue that it formed from debris thrown into orbit after a massive object slammed into the planet. Solving that mystery may depend on something scientists still know surprisingly little about: what Phobos looks like on the inside. Researchers are now trying to narrow down the possibilities , including its gravity and motion. At the recent European Geosciences Union general assembly in Vienna, scientists presented work modeling these geophysical measurements around one of Phobos' most dramatic features, Stickney Crater. Stickney Crater Could Hold a Key Clue The enormous Stickney Crater is central to the debate over Phobos' history. If Phobos formed from debris created by a giant impact on Mars, the collision that produced the 9 km (5.6 mile) diameter crater may have occurred roughly 4.2 billion years ago. If Phobos was instead captured as an asteroid, the Stickney impact could have happened much later, around 2.6 billion years ago. Current estimates suggest that Phobos has a porous interior that may contain water ice, according to Benjamin Haser and co-author Thomas Andert in a 2026 paper published in The Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). One promising way to investigate those possibilities is to map Phobos' gravity in greater detail. The researchers are particularly interested in whether the Stickney impact created a concentrated region of denser material beneath the crater. The Stickney event is one of the most important episodes in Phobos' history, and learning more about it could help scientists determine where the moon came from, Haser, a doctoral student in planetary science at Germany's Universität der Bundeswehr München, told me in Vienna.
The US air force admitted to deploying weapons in space. Don’t expect the White House to explain why
Troy Meink, secretary of the air force, speaks as JD Vance listens at the US Air Force Academy graduation on in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Photograph: Michael Ciaglo/ View image in fullscreen Troy Meink, secretary of the air force, speaks as JD Vance listens at the US Air Force Academy graduation on in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Photograph: Michael Ciaglo/ Analysis The US air force admitted to deploying weapons in space. Don’t expect the White House to explain why Richard Luscombe The revelation ‘left experts scratching their heads at exactly what Donald Trump has in his cosmic arsenal’ In Hollywood at least, space weapons are a relatively simple concept. The good guys, from Captain Kirk and his crew in Star Trek, to Luke Skywalker’s rebel alliance in Star Wars, battle intergalactic villains with an array of colorful lasers and particle-beam cannons, then the bad guys get dispatched in a spectacular, explosive finale. The messaging coming out of the White House on the subject, by contrast, could not be more vague. This week’s attention-grabbing revelation – that the US has deployed some kind of weapons in space – carried nothing in the way of context or detail, and left experts scratching their heads at exactly what Donald Trump has in his cosmic arsenal. It could just be a building block, and the US is going to lay out more later with that. To me that would make logical sense, if that was the plan.” What the plan actually is has never been made clear, and Meink, in his announcement, stressed it was unlikely ever to be. “Me talking about the details of what we’re doing would actually not benefit deterrence, so we’re not going to talk about the specifics of what we’re doing, whether we’ve tested it, not tested it, or anything else,” he said. View image in fullscreen A solider during a ceremony for US Air Force airmen transitioning to US Space Force guardian designations at Travis air force base in California on . Photograph: Noah Berger/APBut as Russia and China, both US adversaries, have advanced their own aggressive outer space ambitions and agendas, Trump has responded -increasing focus on militarizing the heavens. During his first term of office, he created Space Force, the first new, separate branch of the US military in more than seven decades. Last month, he signed an executive order designating the first US Space Academy, a proposed joint civilian-military institution modeled on the army and navy training academies at West Point and Annapolis, to be sited at an as-yet unnamed location.
Archaeologists are racing to save precious artifacts in Alaska after last year's storm
Archaeologists are racing to save precious artifacts in Alaska Last year, remnants of a typhoon damaged homes, infrastructure and an archaeological dig site. Now, archaeologists are trying to get as many objects out as possible before the next storm. History Archaeologists are racing to save precious artifacts in Alaska after last year's storm September 19, 20265:01 AM ET By Samantha Watson A crew of volunteer excavators and archaeologists searches the soil for artifacts at the Nunalleq dig site near the coastal village of Quinhagak, Alaska, on June 8. MaryCait Dolan/KYUK hide caption toggle caption MaryCait Dolan/KYUK Last October, remnants of Typhoon Halong swept through western Alaska — causing widespread flooding and displacing over a thousand people in multiple far-flung villages off the state's road system. In the coastal village of Quinhagak, the storm shook houses and damaged some buildings and infrastructure. And the day after it hit, Jenny Matthew and her husband rode four-wheelers along the torn-up beach, assessing the damage. Only on NPR People's houses are collapsing into the ocean. FEMA gives them no other option The wind and floodwaters had peeled the tundra up like discarded carpeting. And as Matthew scanned the debris, suddenly, something caught her eye. "I said to my husband, 'Look, what's that?' We stopped. He got up and took it, and it was that bowl," Matthew remembered. The bowl was wooden and smooth. It was carved 400 and 600 years ago and was one of thousands of cultural objects scattered along the coastline. Science This High Arctic rhino may change what we know about ancient animal migrations The storm had unearthed it from an archaeological dig site called Nunalleq that sits near the village. It's renowned as one of the best examples of Alaska Native Yup'ik culture before Western contact and serves as an important link to Quinhagak's past. Not only had the storm scattered many objects from the site, it also increased the risks for what was still in the ground . This past summer, a team of archaeologists came to the village for an emergency dig to recover as much as possible before the next big storm. Principal archaeologist Rick Knecht examines an artifact found . MaryCait Dolan/KYUK hide caption toggle caption MaryCait Dolan/KYUK Charlotta Hillerdal holds up a wooden doll found in the soil at Nunalleq. MaryCait Dolan/KYUK hide caption toggle caption MaryCait Dolan/KYUK Precious objects slowly being excavated Archaeologists have been working at this dig site since 2009, according to lead archaeologist Rick Knecht.
Alaska's salmon-feasting bears face off in biggest Fat Bear Week ever
Fat Bear Week 2026 rolls out a bracket that’s bigger than ever This year's single-elimination tournament will see 16 competitors face off, compared to 12 in past years. Officials report more cubs in Katmai National Park than they've seen in recent memory. Animals Alaska's salmon-feasting bears face off in biggest Fat Bear Week ever September 18, 20265:13 PM ET By Bill Chappell A mother bear and two cubs in Brooks River, where brown bears living in Katmai National Park and Preserve are entered into a tournament celebrating bears that have put on pounds to survive the winter. Loberg/NPS hide caption toggle caption C. Loberg/NPS The brown bears in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska, famous for embiggening themselves 's scenic Brooks River, are ready for their annual closeup. The 2026 Fat Bear Week bracket came out on Friday, kicking off a competition to determine which bear has worked hardest to pack on pounds for hibernation. Short Wave This Fat Bear Week, take a look at the scientific reasons bears need to bulk up Officials say fans should look out for signs of a generational shift, reflecting the vitality of Katmai's ecosystem. And this year's bracket features 16 bears, up from 12 in recent years. "There are more cubs at Brooks Camp this year than have been seen in a long time," Park Superintendent Mark Sturm said in a news release. "A new generation of fat bears is taking shape, and they're off to a strong start," Sturm added, saying his team is eager to the young bears develop and fit in. New contenders this year include Bear 89, a male known as "Backpack." His nickname originated after an injury he had as a cub forced him to ride around on his mother's back, according to the park's website. Another male competitor is 151 Walker, one of the most dominant bears on the river. This year's single-elimination tournament begins on Tuesday, Sept. 22, when public voting starts. Voting pauses over the weekend, before a new champion is crowned on Sept. 29. Animals Exclusive: Meet the inaugural winner of Fat Marmot Week Viewers can follow the Katmai bears' exploits on webcams from Brooks River on Explore. org. The brown bears and cubs fill TV screens and computer monitors with fishing, eating and inter-ursine drama, giving humans a much-needed break from thinking about AI, midterm elections and the economy. Instead, they can ponder the chances that last year's winner, the immense Bear 32 nicknamed "Chunk," might again be dubbed the fattest bear of them all.
SpaceX’s Starship will orbit Earth for first time during next flight
SpaceX’s Starship atop the Super Heavy V3 booster during the 13th launch on SpaceX/UPI/Shutterstock SpaceX’s reusable rocket, Starship – the tallest and most powerful ever launched – will orbit Earth for the first time within days. And because it will also release working Starlink V3 satellites, it will be the first commercially useful Starship mission. The company has announced that a launch window will open at 7.15am CDT (1.15pm BST) on 22nd September, during which Starship will launch from the company’s Starbase site in Texas. The flight – Starship’s 14th – will reach an altitude of 275 kilometres and complete six orbits of Earth over 10 hours, with re-entry and splashdown targeted in the Pacific Ocean, to the west of Chile. All 13 previous Starship test flights have been, at best, sub-orbital. Starship is made up of two parts: an upper stage, confusingly also called Starship, and a lower stage, called Super Heavy. Currently, SpaceX is testing the latest third generation of each section using a fail-fast, learn-fast strategy more common to Silicon Valley than the conservative world of space exploration. SpaceX is several years into its development programme for Starship, intended to be a rapidly reusable and extremely powerful launch vehicle that will take over the rollout of the company’s Starlink satellites and be a central part of NASA’s Artemis moon missions. The 14th flight will also see 26 Starlink V3 satellites launched for the first time. Thousands of these new devices will join the existing constellation of satellites that provides internet connections around the world. Until now, Starship test flights have launched only dummy test satellites. Davide Amato at Imperial College London says that an orbital test is indicative of confidence within the company that the rocket will at least survive the journey to orbit and the release of satellites. But he says that re-entry, where the company has faced problems during recent tests, may be another matter. “In short, they’re making good progress towards introducing Starship as a successful commercial launcher,” says Amato. “Whether Starship will be ‘revolutionary’, as promised , will depend on whether they will be able to achieve a high launch cadence and on whether their design is cost-effective.” Leah-Nani Alconcel at the University of Birmingham, UK, says that the 14th test flight will be a key step for SpaceX. During the 13th test flight, the booster stage made its ascent as planned, but during descent only eight of the 13 engines intended to slow its fall reignited, causing it to make a hard splashdown into the ocean rather than the planned gentle simulated landing on water.
Physicists are scrambling to make sense of possible dark matter signal
The LUX-ZEPLIN main detector in a surface lab before installation underground Sanford Underground Research Facility We may have finally spotted a dark matter particle – but figuring out exactly what kind of particle it was is a daunting task. Even as researchers race to confirm they really did detect an unknown particle, physicists around the world have already started working out what sort of dark matter particle it might have been. The potential particle in question was found at the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) detector in South Dakota and announced on 1 September. The detector uses a huge tank of liquid xenon to look for signatures of dark matter particles smashing into the nuclei of xenon atoms, which are expected to produce a burst of light in response to any collision that would then be picked up . The LZ group recorded only a single burst of light, and there is about a 1-in-200 chance that the signal was a fluke event rather than evidence that dark matter was there – but nevertheless it is tantalising. In the weeks since the announcement, theorists have released scores of papers digging into the data, searching for answers. “The large number of papers is less a statement that theorists believe the event is a [true] dark matter discovery and more a reflection of the fact that, if it persists, its energy already tells us quite a lot about types of physical processes that could produce it,” says Juri Smirnov at the University of Liverpool in the UK. Many of those papers debate the possibility that the particle could be what is called a higgsino, a type of non-“vanilla” WIMP. It arises from a theoretical framework called supersymmetry, in which every known particle is proposed to have a “superpartner”, with some similar properties but different spin. In supersymmetry, the higgsino would be the superpartner of the Higgs boson. A higgsino is the simplest WIMP explanation still available to explain the LZ signal, according to JiJi Fan at Brown University in Rhode Island. “It gives rise to a wealth of signals that could be searched for at different experimental frontiers.” Plus, a higgsino detection event is predicted to be unaccompanied by a host of lower-energy collisions, matching the signal detected . However, the higgsino has its problems. The most basic model of that sort of particle that could explain the LZ detection seems to be ruled out . This doesn’t mean the particle couldn’t have been a higgsino, but it does suggest the higgsino in question would need to have had a much higher mass than expected.
Lindsay Clancy holdout juror says he had no doubt she deliberately killed her children
The lone holdout juror in the trial of Lindsay Clancy has said he "didn't have any doubts" that she was criminally responsible for killing her three children. "Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned it," Michael Desronvil said in a statement to CBS News, the BBC's US partner. The judge declared a mistrial on 4 September after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict following nearly 40 hours of deliberating. Clancy admitted to the killings but her lawyers argued she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis. Prosecutors said the killings were calculated. Warning: This article contains distressing details The 36-year-old was charged with three counts of first-degree murder after strangling Cora, five, Dawson, three, and Callan, eight months, at the family's Massachusetts home before jumping out of the second-floor window. To find Clancy guilty, jurors had to be unanimously convinced beyond reasonable doubt that she intentionally killed her children and that she did not do so as a result of postpartum psychosis, a rare and serious condition. The jury - nine women and three men - considered a range of options including not guilty , manslaughter and first-degree murder. Several jurors have said following the mistrial being declared that the panel was ultimately divided 11-1 in favour of finding Clancy not criminally responsible. Desronvil said he believed the evidence presented in court showed she had planned the killings. "I didn't have any doubts," he said in a statement to CBS on Thursday. "As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence presented." 'Emotional rollercoaster' - Lindsay Clancy jurors speak out on what led to mistrial What happens next after Lindsay Clancy's murder case ends in a mistrial? Paula Devlin, one of the other jurors, told CBS Mornings that the panel had spent several days trying to convince Desronvil to change his mind. "We all worked together to convince ourselves once we got to that point where it was 10 to 2," she said. The jury foreperson, a retired fifth-grade teacher, described not being able to reach a verdict as "awful" and an "emotional rollercoaster". She told NBC that Desronvil had "admitted he had reasonable doubt", but as she started filling out the verdict sheets, he apparently said: "But I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty ." Another juror told local CBS station WBZ-TV that most of the jurors had been "very firm in their stance" from the start and "the stand-alone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side".
‘A map is never neutral’: meet the cartographers who took on centuries of western bias
Equal Earth projection, adopted , provides an alternative to 16th-century Mercator display Three cartographers have spoken of their astonishment at the UN’s near-universal adoption of a map they created to more accurately show the sizes of Africa and Europe, even though they have received a few complaints from some disgruntled diplomats. The creators of the Equal Earth projection aimed to provide an alternative to the dominant 16th-century Mercator display, which critics have long faulted for giving the impression that northern hemisphere nations are larger than they are – and therefore subtly reinforcing perceptions of where global strength lies. “It has been a very busy week for me,” said Tom Patterson, a renowned US national parks cartographer who has had to virtually come out of retirement after being inundated with questions from governments on details of the new projection. The UN general assembly voted this month to adopt the new map, which more accurately represents the sizes of all continents, particularly Africa. It is hoped the projection will gradually replace Mercator on school walls and government websites. Put forward by Togo, the proposal was hugely successful, with 164 countries voting in favour. The only “no” vote came from the US, whose UN representative, Yaryna Ferencevych, said resolutions such as the “correct the map” effort were “barnacles on our work here”. The US is one of the countries that appears smaller on the new projection. It also makes Greenland – a territorial prize Donald Trump has openly coveted as a “big beautiful piece of ice” – seem significantly less dominant. Map showing how Greenland and Europe seem bigger in size than Africa in the Mercator projection, while looking smaller in comparison in the Equal Earth projectionSix other nations abstained from the vote, and Patterson said he had been contacted . Japan asked for a revision because it said the map made the disputed Kuril Islands appear to belong to Russia . Ukraine also abstained, as Russian-occupied Crimea was a different colour to the rest of the country. Ukraine’s representatives at the UN said this opened a “Pandora’s box” and violated international law. The cartographers see these objections as stemming from something of a misunderstanding. The map voted on at the UN is simply a mathematical projection of the land and sea, without human-made borders or shading. The confusion arose due to a website run . He had annotated these with geopolitical lines and the names of countries, and has been rushing this week to update them, including switching colours and changing spellings, such as Turkey to Türkiye. “I view the Equal Earth maps as living documents and am grateful for the many helpful suggestions that I have received,” he said.
Andy Burnham urged to set dementia waiting-time target
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to reform adult social care in England Prime Minister Andy Burnham is facing calls to set a national waiting-time target for dementia care in England. An Alzheimer's Society proposal to set an 18‑week referral‑to‑treatment target has been backed , England's former national cancer director, and Baroness Louise Casey, who's leading a major review of adult social care. In a report, Alzheimer's Society and the King's Trust said a "cancer-style revolution" was needed to improve dementia care, which they described as being "stuck in the 20th century". In a speech at Alzheimer's Society conference on Thursday, Social Care Minister Alison McGovern expressed support for the report, external. She said: "The report that the Alzheimer's Society published today on going on the journey that we've been on with cancer, with Alzheimer's and dementia, I think that's spot on." The minister said dementia had been "neglected for far too long". She added: "And nowhere is this division between health and social care felt more sharply than , too often left to navigate a shattered system at the most difficult time in their lives." The government has committed to appointing a top official to oversee dementia care and publish a new plan - a modern service framework - to speed up support for those with the disease . McGovern said the government would "appoint a dementia tsar, backed with real expertise". Currently there is no waiting-time target for dementia in England. In contrast, the NHS sets waiting-time targets for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Professor Richards was the national cancer director when these cancer targets were introduced in 2000, and said he thought an 18‑week referral‑to‑treatment target for dementia patients was achievable. He said setting such a target would require "political initiative" and extra funding. "All of that is going to cost more money but remember the toll that this condition is taking at the moment, both on the people affected ," the professor said. The same proposal has been made . In a letter to former Health Secretary Wes Streeting in March, she said the government should look at "how dementia can be put on a level playing field with other conditions, for example , including an 18‑week referral‑to‑treatment target". Speaking to the BBC, Baroness Casey said she agreed with the proposal to emulate cancer care. She said: "I think the National Health Service and more generally all of us have stuck our heads in the sand about it, and it's time we started saying, yes, we should have a similar mission, and we should do as much as we possibly can on dementia, and now." Baroness Casey is expected to publish her recommendations on social care reform next summer.