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| 28 April 2025 | | Today’s Visualized examines some really tiny tattoos. But first, catch up on the latest science news, including the oldest ant fossil and the surprising commonness of super-Earths. | |
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| Volcanology | Science | | Lava alert: New detector uses fiber-optic cables to predict volcanic activity | On Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, people don’t generally need to worry about tsunamis or tornadoes. But lava is a constant threat—the residents in and around GrindavÃk have dealt with numerous eruptions since 2023. They can seemingly come out of nowhere and threaten homes, but now, thanks to languishing fiber-optic cables, residents may get a decent heads up about an impending flow.
The recent upswing in volcanic activity presented researchers with an opportunity to test a new kind of monitoring technology called distributed acoustic sensing or DAS. The tech involves shining lasers into fiber-optic cables—like the ones that deliver high-speed internet. If vibrations pass through the cable, the light undergoes a phase change, which the team can detect and use to glean information about the nature of the vibrations.
In late 2023, researchers set up their system on an unused 100-kilometer-long cable and recorded data for a year. Using this dataset, they developed a way of ‘reading’ vibrations that can warn people of an eruption between 30 minutes to several hours before it breaks the surface.
DAS also revealed that there’s a lot more activity below the surface than previously realized, which is helping researchers better understand the volcano more generally. “DAS provides us a new capability to see things we couldn’t before,” said co-author Zhongwen Zhan in a statement. | | |
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| Paleontology | News from Science | | This ‘hell ant’ is the oldest known ant |  | | Anderson Lepeco | When entomologist Anderson Lepeco combed through an overlooked fossil collection, he made a remarkable discovery: the oldest ant ever—113 million years old—entrapped in limestone.
The fossil, identified as a new species named Vulcanidris cratensis, belongs to the extinct hell ant group—ancient relatives of modern ants known for their scythe-like jaws and horned heads. Until now, most hell ant fossils were found in the Northern Hemisphere, making this South American discovery especially significant. Researchers used micro-computed tomography to create a 3D image of the fossil, allowing researchers to compare it to other hell ants.
The discovery suggests South America may have been an evolutionary epicenter for these ancient insects. Scientists believe hell ants were among the first major ant groups to spread globally and diversify. Phil Barden, who’s studied hell ants found in Burmese amber, says the discovery promises to rewrite what we know about the origin and evolution of ants. “I love this paper,” he adds. However, a mystery remains: why did hell ants, with their special scythe jaws, go extinct while other ants survived? | | |
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| Astronomy | Science | | Giant, frozen Earths are surprisingly common… just not in our Solar System | Our Solar System is somewhat of an outlier. Other star systems commonly have planets unlike any of the eight we know: rocky worlds that are much bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. And while some of these so-called super-Earths exist somewhat close to their stars—comparable to Earth’s distance from the Sun—many orbit at Saturn’s distance or farther, new research finds.
The discovery was spurred by the spotting of one such super-Earth through a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing. Essentially, a planet’s passage in front of a star creates what looks like a small but detectable increase in the brightness because of the way the planet’s gravity focuses the star’s light. The observation indicated that there was a planet about twice as large relative to its star as Earth is to the Sun with an orbit closer to that of Jupiter. That spurred the team to comb through a massive survey of microlensing events for similar phenomena, and they found enough to suggest that there’s a super-Earth on a Jupiter-like orbit in one in every three star systems.
As these planets would be frozen at that distance, “the current data provided a hint of how cold planets form,” said co-author Shude Mao in a statement. “We’re like paleontologists reconstructing not only the history of the universe we live in but the processes that govern it ,” said co-author Richard Pogge. “So helping to bring both of those pieces together into one picture has been enormously satisfying.” | | |
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 | | | How are ADCs changing the cancer treatment landscape? | | For this Q&A, Science custom publishing sat down with Megan O’Meara, head of early-stage development at Pfizer Oncology, to discuss how ADC technology is changing the cancer treatment paradigm. | |
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| | | Visualized |  | | These tiny “tattooed” dots could be the beginning of a new era of nanoscale medical devices or even living microrobots. Adapted from Nano Letters, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c00378, 2025 | It’s no secret that we here at ScienceAdviser are big fans of tardigrades. These tiny “water bears” are tougher than they look—they can get blasted with radiation that’d kill a person a thousand times over, for instance. And they’re so nearly indestructible that they can survive being frozen for decades. It was actually that freezability that the researchers behind a new study exploited to test a microfabrication process—one that could transform biomedicine.
The teeny tiny devices scientists and engineers have figured out how to build have already revolutionized the electronics and photonics industries. However, the current processes for making nano- and microscale devices aren’t compatible with living tissues—either the chemicals involved are too toxic, or they require too much radiation. To take biomedical devices to the next level, researchers need to figure out how to make microfabrication more tissue-friendly.
One process that has potential to be biocompatible is ice lithography. Essentially, the method involves coating the target with a thin film of ice containing some kind of etching compound that leaves an imprint when hit by an electron beam, leaving only the beam-carved pattern when the tissue is rewarmed. In the new study, a team from Westlake University in China used a chemical called anisole—which smells like the spice anise—because when hit by the etching beam it creates a sticky, nontoxic residue that lingers on tissue when the anisole ice sublimates. They needed to try the method on a test subject that could withstand being frozen, and tardigrades were an obvious choice.
After putting the animals into a frozen state of suspended animation, the team was able to “tattoo” a variety of micropatterns onto the tardigrades, including dots (above), lines, and the Westlake University logo. Only about 40% of the moss piglets survived, so there’s much room for improvement, the team said. Still, those that did make it seemed no worse for the wear. Once refined, the technique could allow scientists to print onto living tissue at the nanoscale, the team writes.
“Through this technology, we’re not just creating micro-tattoos on tardigrades—we’re extending this capability to various living organisms, including bacteria,” co-author Ding Zhao explained in a statement. The technique could allow doctors to tattoo nanosensors directly onto organs, for example, or allow scientists to create microbiological cyborgs. Ice lithography inventor Gavin King, who was not involved in the work, agreed. “This advance portends a new generation of biomaterial devices and biophysical sensors that were previously only present in science fiction,” King said. | |
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| Microbes against myalgia | | For 12 of 14 participants in a trial, microbial supplements improved symptoms of fibromyalgia, including pain, anxiety, and trouble sleeping. Though there were no controls, “these findings are really impressive,” one pain scientist said. | | Neuron Paper | Read more at Nature | |
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| Girls versus boy | | Although male bonobos are larger than females, females usually win in a fight by enlisting their friends. That results in the average female outranking about 70% of the males in her community. As one of our closest relatives, bonobos serve as “a mirror for humanity … While some people might think that patriarchy and male dominance are somehow an evolutionary trait in our species, that’s really not the case,” one expert noted. | | Communications Biology Paper | Read more at The New York Times | |
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| Old as rock | | Michigan’s Watersmeet Gneiss is at least 3.6 billion years old, and therefore is probably the oldest rock in the U.S. But dating rocks is more complicated than one might think. “A rock can be composed of minerals that formed at different ages,” one expert pointed out. “So, what is the age of the rock? I mean, what does the question really mean?” | | Geology Today analysis | Read more at Science News | |
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| | One concept that creates misunderstanding is “scientific consensus.” It’s time to stop using this shorthand and make clear what it really means. | | EDITORIAL | 24 April 2025 | H. Holden Thorp | |
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| Last but not least | | What stories could whales tell us if we could understand them? While I find the legal implications of that question fascinating, I think I’m even more intrigued at the thought of seeing the world through another species’ eyes. |  | Christie Wilcox, Editor, ScienceAdviser
With contributions from Alexa Robles-Gil
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