University of Sheffield Archives

The Large Dirty Mars Chamber, housed at the Open University. Credit: Petr Brož

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Simulating The Solar System’s Ice Volcanoes In The Lab

by Keith CowingJuly 30, 2025July 30, 2025

Scientists have been able to recreate the extreme conditions found on icy moons in deep space – and revealed the unstable behaviour of water.

Topology weighting reveals genomic regions associated with reproductive mode. (A) For each genomic window, we inferred a tree for all haplotypes and then classified 10,000 “subtrees” by randomly picking one haplotype per group. Topology weights are the proportions of each topology among all subtrees. Windows were plotted in a ternary plot based on the weights. (B) Simulated distributions of weights. A greater opportunity for lineage sorting (i to iii) biases the distribution toward the topology that matches the demographic history. Incomplete lineage sorting yields genealogies that are a better fit to one of the discordant trees, but the distribution is always symmetrical between the left and right half-triangles. Additional factors, including gene flow, create a bias toward one discordant genealogy (iv to vi). (C) Possible topologies and the empirical distribution of weights for the 154,971 100-SNP windows (“C,” compressa; “A,” arcana; “I” Iberian saxatilis; “N,” northern saxatilis). Hexagonal bins are colored by window count. (D) Counts of windows in the left and right half-triangles, with asymmetry quantified using DLR. Further division into subtriangles reveals left-right asymmetry throughout the distribution. Asterisks indicate significant asymmetry between corresponding left- and right-sided subtriangles. (E) Distributions of weights >0.7. -- Science

Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Biologists Uncover The Secrets Of Evolutionary Change

by Keith CowingJanuary 5, 2024January 5, 2024

Significant evolutionary changes happen gradually as opposed to in dramatic ‘monster’ steps, biologists have discovered, answering the long-debated question as to how game-changing innovations like flight, vision, and the bearing […]

Fossils & Paleontology

Billion-year-old Fossil Reveals Missing link In The Evolution Of Animals

by Keith CowingApril 29, 2021

A billion year old fossil, which provides a new link in the evolution of animals, has been discovered in the Scottish Highlands. A team of scientists, led by the University […]