“Migraine disease is debilitating and can lead to kids having to miss school and other activities,” said author Anisa Kelley, MD, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Currently, there is only one FDA-approved migraine preventative medication for this age group. Our results are encouraging, showing zonisamide may be another option for reducing migraine attacks.”

For the study, researchers reviewed health records at one institution. They identified 256 children and teens who had been diagnosed with migraine and prescribed preventative zonisamide. Of these participants, 28% had difficult-to-treat migraine, which was defined as having migraine disease unsuccessfully treated with two or more previous medications. Researchers documented the number of headache days per month for each participant both before and after starting zonisamide.

They then divided participants into three subgroups based on how long they took the medication before a follow-up visit with a physician. The first group followed up in the first month, the second group within two to six months and the third group, after six months.

For all participants, the median number of headache days per month reduced from 18 to six at the first follow-up visit. When comparing between the groups, the subgroup that followed up within two to six months had the largest reduction with a median decrease of six headache days per month. Kelley noted that the data suggested the drug was most effective after at least two months of use.

The data also suggested that the drug was effective for both those with difficult-to-treat migraine disease and those without.

“It’s very exciting that we may have an effective way to treat difficult migraine disease in children and teens, however it’s important to note that our study did have limitations,” said Kelley. “For instance, our study did not compare people taking the medication to people who did not take the medication. Future studies are needed with control groups to confirm our results.”

This study was funded by Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

Published in Science Robotics, the research glimpses a future where nimble microrobots can crawl through tiny spaces, skitter across dangerous ground, and sense their environments without human intervention.

The new Harvard robot was created in the lab of Robert J. Wood, the Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS. It is a modification of the Harvard Ambulatory Microrobot (HAMR), a microrobotic platform originally modeled after the dexterous, hard-to-kill cockroach. Now, HAMR is outfitted with a robotic furcula — the forked, tail-like appendage tucked under a springtail’s body that it pushes off the ground to send it Simone Biles-ing into the air.

“Springtails are interesting as inspiration, given their ubiquity, both spatially and temporally across evolutionary scales,” Wood said. “They have this unique mechanism that involves rapid contact with the ground, like a quick punch, to transfer momentum and initiate the jump.”

To go airborne, the robot uses what’s called latch-mediated spring actuation, in which potential energy is stored in an elastic element — the furcula — that can be deployed in milliseconds like a catapult. This physical phenomenon is found time and again in nature, not just in springtails: from the flicking tongue of a chameleon to the prey-killing appendage of a mantis shrimp.

Wood’s team previously created amantis shrimp-inspired punching robot. “It seemed natural to try to explore the use of a similar mechanism, along with insights from springtail jumps, for small jumping robots,” Wood said.

The springtail’s furcula is also elegantly simple, composed of just two or three linked units. “I think that simplicity is what initially charmed me into exploring this type of solution,” said first author and former SEAS research fellow Francisco Ramirez Serrano.

The team used streamlined microfabrication workflows pioneered in the Wood lab to develop the palm-sized, paper clip-light robot that can walk, jump, climb, strike, and even scoop up objects.

The robot demonstrates some of the longest and highest jumps of any existing robot relative to body length; its best performance is 1.4 meters, or 23 times its length. By contrast, a similar robot can jump twice as far but outweighs the Harvard robot by 20 times.

“Existing microrobots that move on flat terrain and jump do not possess nearly the agility that our platform does,” Serrano said.

The team incorporated detailed computer simulations into the design of the robot to help it land optimally every time, precisely controlling for the lengths of its linkages, the amount of energy stored in them, and the orientation of the robot before takeoff.

Packing all manner of athletic abilities into one lightweight robot has the team excited for a future where robots like theirs could traverse places humans can’t or shouldn’t.

“Walking provides a precise and efficient locomotion mode but is limited in terms of obstacle traversal,” Wood said. “Jumping can get over obstacles but is less controlled. The combination of the two modes can be effective for navigating natural and unstructured environments.”

The research was supported by the U.S. Army Research Office under grant No. W911NF1510358.

A research group from Tohoku University has helped shed light on this by improving an existing Mars climate model. The enhanced model accommodates the various properties of Martian regolith, or the loose deposits of solid rock that comprise Martian soil.

Mirai Kobayashi says current models fail to account for the fact that laboratory experiments have demonstrated that the water-holding capacity of the regolith is strongly influenced by its adsorption coefficient.

“Models to date that estimate the distribution of surface and subsurface water on Mars assume that its regolith properties are uniform. This contrasts with observations made by orbiters and landers, which suggest that Martian regolith has globally non-uniform physical properties.”

The model estimated Mars’s subsurface water distribution down to 2 meters from the surface. Like a sponge, highly absorptive regolith in Mars’s mid- and low latitudes retains substantial amounts of absorbed water. Some of this water, the findings showed, remains on the surface of the regolith as stable adsorbed water.

The study also showed that the soil on Mars could keep ice near the surface in the middle and lower areas because water vapor moves more slowly there. This means the soil helps trap water for a long time by slowing down how water vapor spreads, which is important for understanding the change in water on Mars over time.

“Our study stresses the importance of incorporating absorption and inhomogeneity of Martian regolith in forecasting Mars’s surface water,” says Takeshi Kuroda, who led the team alongside Kobayashi, Arihiro Kamada and Naoki Terada. “The model can also be used to study how water on Mars has changed, and how it may have moved deeper underground near the planet’s mantle.”

With several Mars exploration missions underway, including the Japan-led Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) and the international Mars Ice Mapper (MIM) projects, the model is expected to complement further studies that can lead to subsurface water maps of Mars.

“It was the running equivalent to summiting Mount Everest for the first time,” said University of Colorado Boulder Integrative Physiology Professor Rodger Kram. “Prior to Bannister, it was considered impossible — beyond the limits of human physiology.”

Seven decades later, a female runner has yet to follow in Bannister’s footsteps, and some have questioned whether it’s possible. A new study published this week by Kram and his colleagues suggests that with the right strategically timed and placed pacers, the answer is yes — and Kenyan Olympian Faith Kipyegon is on the brink of doing it.

“We found that if everything went right, under a couple of different drafting scenarios, she could break the 4-minute barrier,” said co-author Shalaya Kipp, an Olympic middle-distance runner who earned her master’s degree in Kram’s lab. “It’s extremely exciting that we are now talking about, and studying, the limits of female human performance, too.”

From ‘Breaking 2’ to ‘Breaking 4’

In 2016, Kram’s lab calculated what was required for a man to break the fabled two-hour marathon barrier.

He and his students determined that, along with intense training, state-of-the-art shoes and an ideal course and weather conditions, drafting — running behind or in front of another runner to reduce air resistance — was key.

Informed in part by their research, Nike hosted the Breaking2 Project in May 2017 to create those conditions for Kenyan marathoner Eliud Kipchoge. Kipchoge narrowly missed his goal that day but nailed it in a similarly staged race in Vienna in 2019.

Four years later, Kram watched with interest as Kenyan runner Faith Kipyegon crushed records for the women’s 1,500 meter, the 5,000 meter and the mile — all in less than two months, while raising her daughter.

When Kipyegon smashed the mile world record for women with a time of four minutes, 7.64 seconds, she was just over 3% away from breaking the 4-minute-mile, noted Kram. Coincidentally, when his team first started doing their research, the marathon world record holder was about 3% shy of a two-hour marathon.

Kram and his former students, now spread out at research institutions around the world, reconvened — this time to explore the limits of female human performance.

The power of drafting

Run alone, even on a still day, and air molecules bump into you as you move through them, slowing you down. Run in the shadow of a pacer or, better yet, with runners in front and back, and you use less energy.

“The runner in front is literally pushing the air molecules out of the way,” said Kram.

At a four-minute-mile pace, a runner of Kipyegon’s size must overcome a surprisingly large air resistance force — about 2% of her body weight. The team previously determined that completely eliminating that force would reduce the energy required by about 12%, allowing her to run even faster.

“Anyone from top elite to lower-level runners can benefit from adopting the optimal drafting formation for as much of their race as they can,” said Edson Soares da Silva, first author on the new paper.

For instance, da Silva calculated that a 125-pound, 5-foot-7 female runner who typically runs about a 3:35-minute marathon could improve her time by as much as five minutes.

A magic number

For the new study, the team pored over video of Kipyegon’s record 1-mile finish in Monaco.

The conditions were ideal, but her pacers ran too fast at first, said Kram, letting the gap between them and her widen. By the last lap, her pacers had dropped out and she was on her own.

Ideally, he said, one female pacer would be perfectly spaced in front, another in back, for the first half mile; then another fresh-legged pair would step in to take their place at the half-mile point. Collectively, previous research suggests, they could cut air resistance by 76%. Using that value, the team calculated her projected finish time: Remarkably, 3:59.37 — the same time Bannister hit in 1954.

Inspiring scientists and runners

Kipp, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Mayo Clinic, stresses that their study, like many in the field, was based on previous studies that excluded women.

The authors hope that their paper will help spark more interest in studying the physiology of female athletes and inspire interest in female track and field.

They recently sent a copy of the paper to Kipyegon, her coaches and her sponsors at Nike, floating the idea of another staged race, similar to Breaking2.

“Hopefully,” the last line of the paper reads, “Ms. Kipyegon can test our prediction on the track.”

By chemically analysing crystals in ancient rocks, the researchers discovered that as glaciers carved through the landscape, they scraped deep into the Earth’s crust, releasing key minerals that altered ocean chemistry.

This process had a profound impact on our planet’s composition, creating conditions that allowed complex life to evolve.

Lead author Professor Chris Kirkland from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin’s Frontier Institute for Geoscience Solutions said the study provides valuable insights into how Earth’s natural systems are deeply interconnected.

“When these giant ice sheets melted, they triggered enormous floods that flushed minerals and their chemicals, including uranium, into the oceans,” Professor Kirkland said.

“This influx of elements changed ocean chemistry, at a time when more complex life was starting to evolve.

“This study highlights how Earth’s land, oceans, atmosphere and climate are intimately connected- where even ancient glacial activity set off chemical chain reactions that reshaped the planet.”

Professor Kirkland said the study also offered a new perspective on modern climate change, showing how past shifts in Earth’s climate triggered large-scale environmental transformations.

“This research is a stark reminder that while Earth itself will endure, the conditions that make it habitable can change dramatically,” Professor Kirkland said.

“These ancient climate shifts demonstrate that environmental changes, whether natural or human-driven, have profound and lasting impacts.

“Understanding these past events can help us better predict how today’s climate changes might reshape our world.”

The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth and St. Francis Xavier University, Canada.

The asteroid 2024 YR4, estimated to be about 40 to 90 metres in diameter, was discovered in late December last year on an orbit that could cause it to collide with Earth on 22 December 2032. Because of its size and likelihood of impact, the asteroid quickly rose to the top of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) risk list, a catalogue of all space rocks with any chance of impacting Earth.

ESO’s VLT was used to observe 2024 YR4 in mid-January, giving astronomers the crucial data they needed to more precisely calculate its orbit. Combined with data from other observatories, the very precise measurements from the VLT improved our knowledge of the asteroid’s orbit, leading to an impact probability exceeding 1% — a key threshold to trigger disaster mitigation. More observations were triggered and the International Asteroid Warning Network issued a potential asteroid impact notification, alerting planetary defence groups, including the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group, about the possible impact.

With multiple telescopes around the world observing the asteroid, and astronomers modelling its orbit, the impact probability rose to around 3% on 18 February, the highest impact probability ever recorded for an asteroid larger than 30 metres. However, just the next day, new observations made with ESO’s VLT cut the impact risk in half.

This rise and fall of the asteroid’s impact probability follows an expected and understood pattern. To know where the asteroid will be in 2032, astronomers extrapolate from the small bit of the orbit measured thus far. ESO Astronomer Olivier Hainaut makes an analogy: “Because of the uncertainties, the orbit of the asteroid is like the beam of a flashlight: getting broader and broader and fuzzier in the distance. As we observe more, the beam becomes sharper and narrower. Earth was getting more illuminated by this beam: the probability of impact increased.”

The new VLT observations, together with data from other observatories, have allowed astronomers to constrain the orbit enough to all but rule out an impact with Earth in 2032. “The narrower beam is now moving away from Earth,” Hainaut says. At the time of writing, the impact probability reported by ESA’s Near-Earth Objects Coordination Centre is around 0.001% and the asteroid no longer tops ESA’s risk list.

As 2024 YR4 is moving away from Earth, it has become increasingly faint and difficult to observe it with all but the largest telescopes. ESO’s VLT has been instrumental in observations of this asteroid because of its mirror size and superb sensitivity, as well as the excellent dark skies at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, where the telescope is located. This makes it ideal to track faint objects such as 2024 YR4 and other potentially dangerous asteroids.

Unfortunately, the same Paranal’s pristine dark skies that made these crucial measurements possible are currently under threat by the industrial megaproject INNA by AES Andes, a subsidiary of the US power company AES Corporation. The project is planned to cover an area similar in size to that of a small city and be located, at the closest point, about 11 km from the VLT. Due to its size and proximity, INNA would have devastating effects on the quality of the skies at Paranal, especially due to light pollution from its industrial facilities. With a brighter sky, telescopes like the VLT will lose their ability to detect some of the faintest cosmic targets.

Hainaut warns: “With that brighter sky, the VLT would lose the faint 2024 YR4 about one month earlier, which would make a huge difference in our capability to predict an impact, and prepare mitigation measures to protect Earth.”