Ace Bailey sends the shot away
A laser and a light can rotate 360 degrees, and information that is gathered can be shown to other experts, judges and juries. The CBC's Elizabeth Whitten spoke to the RNC's director of forensics Kathryn Rodgers to learn more about the new technology.
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World's Oldest Rocks Confirmed in Canada
On the shores of Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada lie what could be the world's oldest rocks. A study now suggests they are at least 4.16 billion years old — 160 million years older than any others recorded, and the only piece of Earth's crust known to have survived from the planet's earliest eon. In 2008, researchers reported that these rocks dated back 4.3 billion years, a claim that other scientists contested. Work reported today in Science1 seems to confirm that the rocks, known as the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt, are record-breakers. Researchers say the rock formation offers a unique window into early Earth, after the planet cooled from its fiery birth 4.5 billion years ago. [Sign up for Today in Science, a free daily newsletter] 'It's not a matter of 'my rock is older than yours',' says Jonathan O'Neil, a geologist at Ottawa University who leads the research team. 'It's just that this is a unique opportunity to understand what was going on during that time.' The 'oldest rocks' label has sometimes backfired. In the past few years, other teams have chiselled many samples out of the Nuvvuagittuq belt, leaving the landscape scarred. Last year, the local Inuit community closed access to the rocks to prevent further despoliation. Only a handful of geological samples in the world date back to 3.8 billion years or older. Of those, the oldest undisputed rocks are found in the Acasta gneiss formation in Canada's Northwest Territories; at 4 billion years old, they mark the boundary between Earth's first geological eon, the Hadean, and the following one, the Archaean. Geologists have also found tiny mineral crystals dating back to the Hadean — such as 4.4-billion-year-old zircon crystals from Western Australia — that have become embedded into newer rock. But there are no known surviving chunks of crust from the Hadean — except, perhaps, the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt. It consists primarily of material that started out as volcanic basalt before undergoing various modifications during Earth's tortured history. In their 2008 work, O'Neil and his colleagues analysed the chemical imprint left by the radioactive decay of the isotope samarium-146 into neodymium-142 to calculate that the Nuvvuagittuq rocks were 4.3 billion years old. (Samarium-146 is a short-lived isotope that was depleted in Earth's first 500 million years, and none was left after about 4 billion years ago.) Other scientists challenged that work, arguing, for instance, that Hadean-age crust had become mixed into younger crust, contaminating the results. For the latest work, O'Neil's team analysed some once-molten rocks that had intruded into the main Nuvvuagittuq rocks like a knife cutting into a cake. By dating the intruded rocks, O'Neil and his colleagues were able to establish a minimum age for the cake itself. They used two radioactive clocks: the decay of samarium-146 into neodymium-142 and that of samarium-147 into neodymium-143. Both yielded ages of around 4.16 billion years for the intruded rocks. 'If you don't agree with this, then you need a very speculative, intricate model to get to the same answer,' says O'Neil. Having both clocks agree on an age — which wasn't the case in the earlier work — strengthens the case for a Hadean age for the rocks, says Bernard Bourdon, a geochemist at the University of Lyon in France. He remains circumspect, though, and says he would like to see additional lines of evidence, involving other radioactive isotope decays. 'I would be happy if these rocks were truly Hadean, but I think we still need to be cautious,' Bourdon says. The paper 'provides a new data set that hopefully can advance this discussion', says Richard Carlson, a geochemist at Carnegie Science in Washington DC who has collaborated with O'Neil in previous work. To Carlson, the bulk of the evidence suggests that the rocks are indeed Hadean. For now, more answers might have to wait. The Pituvik Landholding Corporation in Inukjuak, Canada — the Inuit group that is steward of the land in question — is not currently granting permits for further scientific study, due to the earlier damage by other groups. 'It's unfortunate, but I would do the same,' O'Neil says. This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on June 26, 2025.
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3 hours ago
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What is life? A little microbe raises big questions.
It's tiny and needy, but is it alive? That's a question prompted by recent research that highlights a surprisingly complex part of biology. The organism in question is a microbe called Sukunaarchaeum mirabile, discovered by researchers in Canada and Japan who were looking at the DNA of a species of marine plankton, according to a new paper published on bioRxiv. They've found it's unusually reliant on an alive host to survive, which could further blur the lines between cellular life and viruses — which generally considered to not be alive. The National Human Genome Research Institute describes viruses as existing "near the boundary between the living and the nonliving." Viruses can't function without interacting with a living cell. On their own, they're also essentially inert – unable to move – as a 2017 study notes. Enter Sukunaarchaeum mirabile, which could complicate things further. "This organism represents a totally new branch in the archaeal tree of life," lead researcher Takuro Nakayama of the University of Tsukuba told USA TODAY. (Archaea are microorganisms that define the limits of life on Earth.) "Sukunaarchaeum is not a virus, but a highly streamlined cellular organism," Nakayama said. According to the new study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, "the discovery of Sukunaarchaeum pushes the conventional boundaries of cellular life and highlights the vast unexplored biological novelty within microbial interactions." Named for a Japanese deity known for its tiny size, Sukunaarchaeum has one of the smallest genomes ever recorded: "Its genome is drastically reduced – less than half the size of the previously smallest known archaeal genome," Nakayama said. The authors in the study write that "its genome is profoundly stripped-down, lacking virtually all recognizable metabolic pathways, and primarily encoding the machinery for its replicative core: DNA replication, transcription, and translation." "This suggests an unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses,' the study says. "Sukunaarchaeum could be just the tip of the iceberg, pointing to a hidden diversity of life forms with ultra-reduced genomes within the so-called 'microbial dark matter,'" Nakayama told USA TODAY. Indeed, the discovery of Sukunaarchaeum's bizarrely viruslike way of living 'challenges the boundaries between cellular life and viruses,' Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities who was not involved in the work, told Science magazine. 'This organism might be a fascinating living fossil – an evolutionary waypoint that managed to hang on.' The study concludes that "further exploration of symbiotic systems may reveal even more extraordinary life forms, reshaping our understanding of cellular evolution." "I am not an expert on the philosophical definition of 'life," Nakayama said, adding that the definition is not uniform among scientists and is a subject of continuous debate. "Many scientists would agree that cellular structure, the ability to replicate, and the ability to metabolize are key features of life. Viruses typically lack these features," he said. "The discovery of Sukunaarchaeum is interesting in this context because it lacks one of those key features: metabolism. The existence of a cellular organism that seemingly lacks its own metabolism provides a new and important perspective to the ongoing discussion about the definition and minimal requirements of life." Contributing: Joel Shannon, USA TODAY This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: A mysterious microbe raises questions about life
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7 hours ago
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Summit Therapeutics Reportedly Makes $15B AstraZeneca Licensing Talks for Lung Cancer Drug
Summit Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SMMT) is one of the best hot stocks to buy according to Wall Street analysts. On July 3, Bloomberg News reported that AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) is in discussions with Summit Therapeutics for a licensing agreement concerning an experimental lung cancer drug, with a potential value of up to $15 billion. The proposed deal for the drug, which is known as ivonescimab, could involve an upfront payment of several billion dollars to Summit, in addition to future milestone payments. However, the talks are ongoing and could still fall apart. Summit might even choose to partner with a different company. Neither Summit nor AstraZeneca has officially commented on the report. A laboratory employee in a sterile environment inspecting a microscope focused on a Clostridioides difficile infection sample. Summit Therapeutics secured the rights to ivonescimab through a separate deal worth up to $5 billion with China-based Akeso in December 2022. Under that agreement, Summit gained exclusive rights to develop and commercialize ivonescimab in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan, while Akeso (OTC:AKESF) retained rights for other regions, including China. The deal included an upfront payment of $500 million to Akeso and potential regulatory and commercial milestones of up to $4.5 billion. Summit Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SMMT) is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and commercializes patient, physician, caregiver, and societal-friendly medicinal therapies. AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and commercializes prescription medicines. While we acknowledge the potential of SMMT as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the . READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
