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On Mars, clues to an ancient ocean & DNA analysis sheds new light on life & relationships in Pompeii

ScientiFix, our weekly feature, offers you a summary of the top global science stories of the week, with links to their sources.

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New Delhi: Chinese Mars rover, Zhurong, has found evidence of an ancient ocean on the Red Planet, which existed three billion years ago. The rover landed on Mars in 2021. A paper published in Nature explains how Chinese scientists used data from the rover and remote sensing to look at the geological features along the landing site of Zhurong to analyse whether it is conducive to a water body.

Previous evidence suggests there was a Martian ocean during the Hesperian period from 3-3.2 billion years ago in the Southern Utopia region, where the Zhurong rover landed. According to the new study, the rover found features in the landing region that resembled a shoreline, a shallow underwater zone and also a deeper marine zone.

The scientists also found rocks and sediments layered in a way that usually occurs in watery environments. While the existence of the ocean remains a hypothesis, this study brings us one step closer to finding strong evidence to support the theory. Read more here.

DNA analysis debunks previous notions about Pompeii’s citizens

A new story goes back 1,900 years to the Pompeii volcanic eruption, when Mount Vesuvius destroyed numerous Roman towns, including Pompeii, after it erupted and covered the region in ash and volcanic deposits.

However, the pumice lapilli stones that were deposited by Mount Vesuvius had actually preserved the entire city, including buildings, sculptures, paintings and even the people as they were dying. Archaeologists then used plaster casts to recreate the human bodies of Vesuvius’s victims and analyse their lifestyles, anatomy and physiology. 

Now, new research, published in Current Biology on 7 November, used DNA samples from these preserved remains of Pompeii’s residents to find that a lot of the cultural and community assumptions about Pompeii’s human lives were actually incorrect.

For example, the remains of a child and an adult widely thought to be that of a mother and child are actually that of an unrelated man and a child. Similarly, the remains called ‘Two Maidens’, famously thought to have been two sisters embracing, actually show one of them is genetically a male. These DNA insights cast new light on what social relationships were like in Ancient Rome in Pompeii. Read more here.


Also Read: 215 mn hectares across world can naturally regrow into forests, play key role in curbing climate change


 

‘Fungus fight club’: Study shows two parasites co-work on their insect hosts

New interesting research by US scientists discusses a fungus ‘fight club’. Published in the journal PLOS Pathogens on 7 November, the study looks at the unique relationship between two common parasites of the Metarhizium genus. These fungi are known for their insect-killing abilities, and are actually used in a bunch of pesticides and insecticides for agriculture. 

The study focuses on two specific fungi—Metarhizium robertsii (Mr2575) and Metarhizium anisopliae (Ma549)—and how they don’t compete with each other for nutrients inside a host, but use a divide-and-conquer approach instead. Scientists found that in a fly, the Mr2575 parasite chooses to attack the thorax region, while the Ma549 focuses on the abdomen.

In certain other insects, too, the pathogens very deftly partition the resources and don’t encroach on each other’s turf.

This is a seminal study and could have consequences for research not just on fungi, but also on soil health, agriculture, pesticides and food security. Read more here.

COP29 to begin on 11 November. What are India’s expectations

Arguably the biggest global conference on climate change begins next week. The UNFCCC’s Conference of Parties, COP29, is scheduled to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from 11 November. This year’s COP is especially important because it is being called the ‘finance COP’, where countries will meet to decide on many climate action funding mechanisms, including the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, the Adaptation Fund, loss and damages funding, and energy transition funding. 

India holds a particularly significant position as a climate leader in the Global South. It has previously been estimated that developing countries need $1 trillion per year for climate action. That forms the basis of India’s position in negotiations at the COP, besides displaying the country’s efforts at meeting its Nationally Determined Contributions for the Paris Agreement, namely the major push for increasing its renewable energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030. 

But negotiations and disagreements about the amount and sources of climate financing from the developed world to the developing world are bound to take centrestage at COP29.

(Edited by Mannat Chugh)


Also Read: AI-enabled DNA ‘switches’ can now control gene functions in tissues, organs


 

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