Nipah Virus kills two in Kerala State, India.

Two deaths caused by Nipah Virus have been confirmed in Kerala State, India, in an outbreak in Malappuram and Palakkad districts, that began in April 2025, according to a press release issued by the World Health Organization on 6 August 2025.

The first patient, a woman from Malappuram District presented at a hospital in the same district with fever, cough, and respiratory distress on 25 April 2025. She was admitted to the hospital, and then transferred to an intensive care unit on 2 May after developing acute encephalitis, where she is still being treated. The woman was diagnosed with Nipah Virus on 6 May after samples were sent to Calicut Medical College for testing, with the diagnosis being confirmed by a repeat of the test at the National Institute of Virology in Pune on 8 May.

The second patient, also a woman from Malappuram District first developed symptoms on 25 June, and unsuccessfully sought treatment at several healthcare institutions before being admitted to a multi-speciality hospital, where she died on 1 July. Tests subsequently confirmed she was infected with Nipah Virus.

The third patient, a woman from Palakkad District, developed symptoms on 25 June, and again sought treatment at several healthcare centres before being admitted to a multi-speciality hospital, where she remains in a critical condition on a ventilator. Tests confirmed that she was infected with Nipah Virus, making her the first ever confirmed case in Palakkad District.

The final patient, a man from Palakkad District, developed symptoms on 6 July and immediately sought treatment. He was admitted to a private hospital on 10 July, then transferred to a multi-speciality hospital on 11 July, where he died a day later. He too was confirmed by tests to have Nipah Virus, making him the second case in the district.

Nipah Virus infection, a zoonotic illness, is spread to Humans through contact with infected Animals such as Bats and Pigs. Additionally, direct contact with an infected individual can also lead to transmission, although this route is less common. Those affected by Nipah Virus infection may experience severe symptoms, including acute respiratory infection and fatal encephalitis. The only way to reduce or prevent infection in people is by raising awareness about the risk factors and preventive measures to protect themselves. Case management should focus on providing patients with supportive care measures and intensive support for severe respiratory and neurological complications.

Nipah Virus infection in Humans causes a range of clinical presentations including acute respiratory infection and fatal encephalitis.  The case-fatality rates in outbreaks across Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Singapore typically range from 40% to 100%. As of now, there are no available effective therapies or vaccines for this disease.

Electron micrographic image of Nipah Virus. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nipah Virus was first reported in Kerala State in 2018, since when there have been outbreaks every year. The first ever recorded case of Nipah Virus in India was reported in West Bengal in 2001. To date there have been 28 deaths caused by the Virus in Kerala, although 21 of these were in 2018, when local medical authorities were naïve to the disease. 

In the absence of a vaccine or licensed treatment available for Nipah Virus, the only way to reduce or prevent infection in people is by raising awareness of the risk factors and educating people about the measures they can take to reduce exposure to Nipah Virus infection. Case management should focus on the delivery of supportive care measures to patients. Intensive supportive care is recommended to treat severe respiratory and neurological complications.

In order to reduce Bat-to-Human transmission, freshly collected Date Palm juice should be boiled, and fruits should be thoroughly washed and peeled before consumption. Fruits with signs of Bat bites should be discarded. Areas where Bats are known to roost should be avoided. The risk of international transmission via fruit or fruit products (such as raw date palm juice) contaminated with urine or saliva from infected fruit Bats can be prevented by washing them thoroughly and peeling them before consumption.

Natural infection in domestic Animals has been described in farming Pigs, Horses, and domestic and feral Cats. Gloves and other protective clothing should be worn while handling sick Animals or their tissues and during slaughtering and culling procedures. As much as possible, people should avoid being in contact with infected Pigs. In endemic areas, when establishing new Pig farms, consideration should be given to the presence of Fruit Bats in the area and in general, Pig feed and Pig sheds should be protected against Bats when feasible. Samples taken from Animals with suspected Nipah Virus infection should be handled by trained staff working in suitably equipped laboratories.

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Meteorite NWA 16788 sold at auction in New York, despite protests from Government of Niger.

The planet Mars has been of great interest to planetary scientists for as long as the discipline has existed. The planet has been extensively studied by telescope for centuries, and in recent decades by a series of robotic probes. These probes have taught us a great deal more about the planet than could be determined by remote sensing alone, but are only able to carry a limited amount of instrumentation, which cannot be changed, updated, or repaired once the probe has left Earth. To this end the planned Mars Sample Return program aims to bring samples from the red planet back to Earth, where they can be studied with a full range of laboratory techniques. However, this program is still in its very early stages, with no fixed target on Mars or spaceship design settled upon, and it is by no means settled that the mission will go ahead at all.

Until such time as samples are returned from Mars to Earth, the only way in which terrestrial scientists can gain direct access to material from Mars is by the examination of Martian meteorites, pieces of rock from the surface of the planet Mars which have been ejected into space, usually as a consequence of other large bodies impacting the planet. These can be confirmed as having come from Mars by a distinct mineralogy and the presence of isotope ratios detected on the planet by remote probes and not found elsewhere in the Solar System (this is not peculiar to Mars, each large body in the Solar System has its own unique isotope signature). To date, the Meteoritical Society has confirmed 402 meteorites as being of Martian origin.

The majority of Martian Meteorites have been discovered in desert environments, with 343 (85.3%) coming from the Saharan region (61 from Algeria, 1 from 'Algeria or Mali', 1 from 'Algeria or Mauritania', 4 from 'Algeria or Morocco', 1 from 'Algeria or Western Sahara', 1 from Egypt, 15 from Libya, 13 from Mali, 1 from 'Mali or Mauritania', 1 from 'Mali or Niger', 19 from Mauritania, 184 from Morocco, 1 from Niger, 1 from Nigeria, 1 from Tunisia, 15 from Western Sahara, and 23 from unknown 'Northwest African' countries).

Of the 343 known Martian Meteorites from the Sahara, 184 (53.4%) come from Morocco, with a further 15 (4.4%) from the Western Sahara, a disputed territory occupied by Morocco since 1976. This is not because Morocco is more prone to Martian Meteorite falls than other countries, but rather to a difference in the law. While most countries in the region ban the trade in, and export of, meteorites, Morocco allows a trade by licensed dealers, as long as all meteorites are registered with the Moroccan Geological Survey, and a sample of the material is deposited with them. 

This has led to the development of a successful meteorite market in Morocco (which also has a similar trade in fossils). However, there is also a suspicion that many of the meteorites traded through Morocco might originate in other countries (although, given the willingness of the international meteorite community to trade in meteorites either with no known point of origin, or known to have been smuggled out of countries where their trade is forbidden, this scarcely seems worth the effort).

The unregulated way in which meteorites (including Martian Meteorites) are traded also means that many are held in private collections, rather than by public bodies where they can be accessed by scientists (some private collectors do allow scientists to examine their material, but this is of limited value unless it can be guaranteed that all scientists in the field have, and will continue to have, access).

The largest Martian Meteorite discovered to date is NWA 16788 (North West Africa 16788), with a mass of 24.665 kg. This is not just important because bigger meteorites are more impressive; the body from which this was derived is likely to have been significantly larger, which means that the event which caused it to be ejected from Mars must also have been particularly large, giving scientists a reasonable hope of connecting this meteorite to a specific geographic location on Mars.

NWA 16788, the largest individual Martian meteorite recovered thus far. Franza et al. (2024).

NWA 16778 was (allegedly) discovered on 16 July 2023 near Kefkaf in Niger. It was confirmed as being a Martian Meteorite on the basis of samples sent to the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, with the Meteoritical Society being informed that the meteorite was being held in the collection of the Purple Mountain Observatory in China. However, in 2024 the meteorite appeared in a private collection in Arezzo, Italy. Two small samples of the meteorite were donated to the University of Firenze, and it was loaned to the Italian Space Agency during the 2024 European Researchers’ Night, on 27 September, an event intended to boost public engagement with science.

On 8 July 2025 NWA 16788 was placed on display at the auction house Sotherby's in New York, ahead of a planned auction on 16 July, at which it was predicted to fetch US$2-4 million; it was eventually sold to an anonymous buyer for US$4.3, which is likely to amount to a final cost to the buyer of about US$5.3 million once fees and taxes are taken into account.

This sale has prompted a protest by the Government of Niger, which pointed out that since 1997 Nigerien law has prohibited the unlicensed export of a range of heritage items including 'mineralogical specimens', and that the meteorite appeared to have been illegally trafficked out of the country. Sotherby's has denied any wrong-doing, noting that the legislation in question does not specifically mention meteorites.

Since the meteorite was placed on sale, a number of prominent international scientists have come forward to support the Nigerian Government's position, including palaeontologist's Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, who has raised concerns about the loss of valuable scientific specimens into the private vaults of oligarchs, and Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who believes that the term 'mineralogical specimens' clearly covers meteorites, and that the sale represents a clear breach of international law. Sereno, who has led expeditions to fossil sites in Niger for many years, and who founded the organisation Niger Heritage with the intention of building a museum in the country's capital, Niamey, further went on to point out that the removal of heritage items, cultural or natural, from a country without that country's consent is reflective of a colonial attitude which the world should have moved on from.

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Officials from the Libyan Tourist Police and Antiquities Protection Agency protecting newly discovered rock art in the Jabal al-Hasawna mountains.

Officials from the Libyan Tourist Police and Antiquities Protection Agency are protecting a series of newly discovered rock engravings in the Jabal al-Hasawna mountains. The rock art was discovered by a Libyan citizen who notified the offices of the agency in Sabha, the nearest city. They are currently under investigation by experts from the Fezzan Antiquities Authority, the Archaeology Department at Sabha University, and the Brak Al-Shati Security Directorate, with a view to determining their historical significance, and how they can best be protected.

Newly discovered rock art in the Jabal al-Hasawna mountains of Libya. Libyan Tourist Police and Antiquities Protection Agency.

The new discoveries include artworks in a number of styles previously described from elsewhere in the Sahara, including art attributed to the Buffalo or Large Wild Fauna Period (so called because the art often features Giant Buffalo, Syncerus antiquus, and other extinct African megafauna). This artwork was created between 12 000 and 8000 BC by hunter gatherer populations living in a still green Sahara, and comprises geometric shapes and images of Animals such as Antelope, Aurochs, Buffalo, Fish, Giraffe, Hippopotamus, Ostrich, and Rhinoceros, painted onto wall panels with clay, manganese, iron oxide, and organic dyes. Examples of Buffalo Period rock art are found across Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and are particularly abundant in the Fezzan Region of southwestern Libya, and around Oued Djerat in the northern part of the Tassili N'Ajjer, Algeria.

Also present is art from the Round Head Period, which was produced by Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic hunter gatherers from about 7550 to about 5050 BC. Round Head art is painted onto or pecked into rock panel surfaces, and depicts Animals such as Antelope and Barbary Sheep alongside stylised Human figures with rounded heads, often engaged in dancing or other ritual activities. The best known examples of Round Head art come from the Tassili Plateau of southern Algeria, over a thousand kilometres to the southwest of the Jabal al-Hasawna, but examples are also known from the Tadrat Akakas of Libya, and the Djado Plateau of Niger. 

Art from the younger Bovidian, or Pastoral Period, has also been reported. This art style first appears around 6000 BC, and persist to about 700 BC (although most dates to between 5200 and 3800 BC), and contains the first examples of Animal-herding (pastoralism), and depicts Human figures with domestic Animals such as Cattle, Sheep, and Goats, as well as wild Animals such as Antelope, Barbary Sheep, Elephant, and Ostrich. Pastoral Period art contains the oldest known examples of domestic scenes, including women and children, in the Sahara, and is thought to have been made by Neolithic pastoralists migrating seasonally with their herds. The first Pastoral Period art was created while the Sahara was still green, while the latest was made in a desert environment. Over the period the wild Animals depicted in this art reflect this changing climate, as do the locations where it was placed, reflecting changing migration routes as the landscape dried. Examples of Pastoral Period art are common in southwestern Libya and the neighbouring Tassili n'Ajjer area of Algeria.

Younger Horse Period art has also been reported in the Jabal al-Hasawna. This style, dated to between 1200 BC and about 1000 AD, depicts people on Horses and in Chariots, and as well as the first people wearing cloths in Saharan rock art. This style is known from the Tassili n'Ajjer area of Algeria.

Camel Period art appears around 1000 BC and continues to the end of the first millennium BC. This style of art depicts the first Camels in the Sahara, but also domestic Animals such as Cattle and Goats. Men in Camel Period art are often armed with swords, spears, and shields. Examples of Camel Period art are known from Libya, Algeria, and Chad.

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Tavachelydra stevensoni: A new species of Snapping Turtle from the Palaeocene of Colorado.

Snapping Turtles, Chelydroidea, are found today from northern South America to Southern Canada, forming an important component of many North American freshwater ecosystems. Despite being widespread and numerous, there are only five species alive today. Stem group-Chelydroids (i.e. species which are more closely related to living Chelydroids than to any other group), known as pan-Chelydroids, first appeared in the Late Cretaceous, although many fossils are fragmentary, as the shells of Snapping Turtles are less heavily fused than other Turtle groups and tend to disarticulate soon after death, limiting our understanding of this group. Due to this no Cretaceous pan-Chelydroids have been described to date, although post-Cretaceous species have been described from across Laurasia.

In a paper published in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology on 5 August 2025, Tyler Lyson, Holger Petermann,Salvador Bastien,Natalie Toth,Evan Tamez‑Galvan, and Sadie Sherman of the Department of Earth Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and Walter Joyce of the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg, describe a new species of pan-Chelydroid Turtle from the Early Palaeocene Corral Bluffs of the Denver Basin in Colorado.

The Coral Bluffs are a series of outcrops of Latest Cretaceous to Eocene outcrops in El Paso County in the southern Denver Basin, to the east of Colorado Springs. The sequence is well-dated, with three documented magnetic reversals 30n/29r, 29r/29n, and 29n/28r), a pollen-defined Cretaceous/Palaeocene boundary, and a volcanic ash layer which has been dated using lead and uranium isotopes. These bluffs have produced abundant Vertebrate remains from the Puercan North American Land Mammal Age, including Denverus middletoni, one of two known Early Palaeocene pan-Chelydroid Turtles, which together form the earliest described members of the group.

Geography, chronostratigraphy, and biostratigraphy of the Corral Bluffs Study Area within the Denver Basin from which specimens of Tavachelydra stevensoni were collected. (A) Map of Late Cretaceous through Eocene sediments within the Denver Basin showing the location  of the Corral Bluffs Study Area within Colorado Springs (highlighted by box and enlarged in part (B)) in the southwestern portion of the basin. (B)  High-resolution photogrammetric model of the eastern portion of the Corral Bluffs Study Area overlain on Google Earth with geographic locations  of Tavachelydra stevensoni denoted by red stars: (1) DMNH EPV.141854/DMNH Loc.19258; (2) DMNH EPV.143100/DMNH Loc. 20,053; (3) DMNH. EPV.134087/DMNH Loc. 7082; (4) DMNH. EPV.136265/DMNH Loc. 18,852; 5, DMNH EPV.143200/DMNH Loc. 6284. (C) Age, magnetostratigraphic, lithostratigraphic,  and biostratigraphic logs showing the stratigraphic placement of Tavachelydra stevensoni localities (red stars; see numbers from (B)). Stratigraphy is tied to the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale using remnant magnetisation of the rocks at the Corral Bluffs Study Area, two chemical abrasion–isotope dilution–thermal ionisation mass spectrometry uranium/lead-dated volcanic ash beds (yellow star; two dated ash samples represent the same volcanic ash locality and thus only one yellow star), and the palynologically defined K/Pg boundary (italicised dates). The lithostratigraphic log is a composite and shows that the sequence is dominated by intercalated mudstone and sandstone, reflecting a loosely anastomosing fluvial  environment. Pollen biozones are defined by diversification of Momipites spp. (fossil Juglandaceous pollen). Abbreviations: Ma, million years  ago; K/Pg, Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Lyson et al. (2025).

The new species is named Tavachelydra stevensoni, where 'Tavachelydra' is a combination of 'Tava' from the Ute/Nuuchiu name for Pike's Peak Tavá-Kaavi, which can be directly translated as 'Sun Mountain'), and -chelydra, a common suffix for Turtles, which derives from the Greek 'khéludros', meaning 'water serpent', while 'stevensoni' honours the late Brandon Stevenson, a dear friend of Tyler Lyson andlong-time  supporter of the Corral Bluffs project.

The new species is described from five specimens, DMNH EPV.141854, the holotype, which consists of a disarticulated,  but associated, skeleton, comprising a nearly complete carapace and plastron and a complete pelvis, and three paratypes, DMNH EPV.143100, an articulated complete carapace  and partial right hypo- and hypoplastron, DMNH EPV.143200, a hypo- and xiphiplastra, and DMNH. EPV.134087, a poorly preserved, but complete cranium. 

Tavachelydra stevensoni, DMNH EPV.141854 (DMNH Loc.19258), holotype, external view of shell. (A) Photograph and (B) interpretive line drawing of the carapace. (C) Photograph and (D) interpretive line drawing of the plastron. Abbreviations: Ab abdominal scale, An anal scale, Ce cervical scale, co costal, ent entoplastron, epi epiplastron, Fe femoral scale, Gu gular scale, Hu humeral scale, hyo hyoplastron, hypo hypoplastron,  Ig intergular scale, Im inframarginal scale, Ma marginal scale, nu nuchal, per peripheral, Pl pleural scale, pn postneural, spy suprapygal, py pygal, Ve vertebral scale, xi xiphiplastron. Arabic numerals denote neurals. Lyson et al. (2025).

Specimens of Tavachelydra  stevensoni are large, with carapace reaching almost 50 cm in length. This is four times the size of Denverus middletoni, the other pan-Chelydroid Turtle from the Denver Basin. Within the Coral Bluffs fauna only one Turtle, Axestemys infernalis, is larger, while a second, Neurankylus sp., is about the same size. It also appears to be one of the rarer species in a Turtle-rich fauna, and since other thin-shelled species, such as Hoplochelys clark, are relatively abundant, this appears to be a reflection of actual rarity rather than a reflection of poor preservational potential. All the known specimens of Tavachelydra  stevensoni have been found in deposits associated with ponds, rather than river channels (the most abundant environment in the Coral Bluffs deposits), suggesting that they preferred such an environment in life. The skull of Tavachelydra  stevensoni is large and broad, with flat biting surfaces, which suggests a durophagous diet (eating hard food, such as shellfish). This is noteworthy, as there is evidence that durophagous species and groups may have preferentially survived the End Cretaceous Extinction.

Reconstruction of Tavachelydra stevensoni basking on a log in a ponded water environment. Andrey Atuchin in Lyson et al. (2025).

A phylogenetic tree constructed by Lyson et al. placed Tavachelydra  stevensoni as the sister species to the extant Snapping Turtles, with later European and Asian species less closely related. This is unsurprising, as while these species are more recent, they are less likely to be ancestral to modern species restricted to North America. Denverus middletoni was also recovered as only distantly related to extant Chelydrids, indicating it was a member of a lineage which did not survive till today.

Cladogram of Chelydroid Turtles mapped  against the stratigraphic ranges for each taxon (black, type strata,  grey, age of referred material). Strict consensus tree from six most  parsimonious trees. Lyson et al. (2025).

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The Perseid Meteor Shower.

The Perseid Meteor Shower lasts from late July to early September each year, and are expected to be at a peak before dawn on Tuesday 12 August 2025. Viewing will be less than ideal for the Perseids this year, as the meteors peak after the Full Moon on Saturday 9 August. The Perseids get their name from the constellation of Perseus, in which the meteors have their radiant (the point from which they appear to originate). Potentially, at the peak of activity, the Perseid Meteor Shower can produce over 150 meteors per hour, although it is best seen from the Northern Hemisphere, as the constellation of Perseus is near to the North Pole. 

The radiant point for the Perseid Meteor Shower. N Sanu/Wikimedia Commons.

Meteor showers are thought to be largely composed of material from the tails of comets. Comets are composed largely of ice (mostly water and carbon dioxide), and when they fall into the inner Solar System the outer layers of this boil away, forming a visible tail (which always points away from the Sun, not in the direction the comet is coming from, as our Earth-bound experience would lead us to expect). Particles of rock and dust from within the comet are freed by this melting (strictly sublimation, transforming directly from a solid to a gas due to the low pressure on it's surface) of the comet into the tail and continue to orbit in the same path as the comet, falling behind over time.

The Earth passing through a stream of comet dust, resulting in a meteor shower. Not to scale. Astro Bob.

The Perseid Meteors are caused by the Earth passing through the trail of the Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, and encountering dust from the tail of this comet. The dust particles strike the atmosphere at speeds of over 200 000 km per hour, burning up in the upper atmosphere and producing a light show in the process.

How the passage of the Earth through a meteor shower creates a radiant point from which they can be observed. In The Sky.

Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle was discovered independently in July 1862 by the astronomers Lewis Swift and Horace Parnell Tuttle, after whom it is named. The number 109P implies that it was the 109th comet discovered (strictly speaking people had been observing comets for thousands of years, but it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that it was realised that they were predictable objects that returned cyclically), that it is a periodic comet (P - again, most comets are periodic, but the term 'periodic comet' is reserved for those with periods of less than 200 years, since these can be reliably predicted).

Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle imaged in 1992 during its last visit to the Inner Solar System. The Planetary Society/NASA.

Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle itself only visits the Inner Solar System once every 133 years, last doing so in 1992, on an eccentric orbit tilted at 113° to the plane of the Solar System (or 67° with a retrograde orbit - an orbit in the opposite direction to the planets - depending on how you look at it), that takes it from 0.95 AU from the Sun (95% of the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 51.22 AU from the Sun (51.22 times as far from the Sun as the Earth, more than three times as far from the Sun as Neptune and slightly outside the Kuiper Belt, but only scraping the innermost zone of the Oort Cloud). 

The orbit and current position of Comet 109P/Swift Tuttle. JPL Small Body Database Browser.

109P/Swift-Tuttle is next expected to visit the Inner Solar System in 2126, reaching about 22 950 00 km (0.15 AU) from Earth in August of that year. As a comet with a period of more than 20 years but less than 200 years, 109P/Swift-Tuttle is considered to be a Periodic Comet, and a Halley-type Comet.

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