Mars' Core Revealed, "Pristine" Galaxy Spotted, Alzheimer's Test Hope, and a Quantum Leap - Science News Roundup (Sept 4-5, 2025)

• Mars has a solid inner core: Seismic data from NASA’s InSight lander show Mars’ inner core is a solid iron-nickel ball ~380 miles in radius – similar in proportion to Earth’s solid core phys.org. “Our results suggest that Mars has a solid inner core making up about one-fifth of the planet’s radius… roughly the same proportion as Earth’s,” said lead researcher Daoyuan Sun phys.org.
• Earliest galaxy with no heavy elements? Astronomers using JWST report discovering AMORE6, a galaxy so metal-poor it may be the first “pristine” Population III galaxy ever observed (formed ~900 million years post–Big Bang) scitechdaily.com. The team found no oxygen emission lines in AMORE6, “immediately indicating… a very low-metallicity, near pristine… interstellar medium,” they note scitechdaily.com.
• Quantum computing breakthrough: Engineers built a “quantum-inspired” computer that runs at room temperature, using oscillating circuits in a special quantum material to solve complex optimization problems with high speed and low power scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. “Our approach… leverages physical phenomena… achieving greater energy efficiency and speed,” said UCLA’s Alexander Balandin scitechdaily.com.
• Early Alzheimer’s test: UK scientists demonstrated a 3-minute EEG brainwave test (“Fastball”) that detects early cognitive impairment (MCI) years before Alzheimer’s diagnosis bath.ac.uk. They even showed it works in patients’ homes with a simple device bath.ac.uk. “We’re missing the first 10 to 20 years of Alzheimer’s with current tools. Fastball offers a way to change that – detecting memory decline far earlier,” said Dr. George Stothart bath.ac.uk.
• Diet sweeteners & brain aging: A 12,000-person study in Neurology linked high intake of artificial sweeteners (diet soda, etc.) to a 62% faster decline in memory and thinking – roughly 1.6 extra years of cognitive aging over ~8 years sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. “Low- and no-calorie sweeteners… may have negative effects on brain health over time,” said Dr. Claudia Suemoto, though causation isn’t proven sciencedaily.com.
• Climate-fueled wildfires: Climate scientists (World Weather Attribution) report this summer’s Mediterranean wildfires (Turkey, Greece, Cyprus) were 22% more intense, burning >1 million hectares, due to human-caused warming phys.org. Drought conditions that prime such fires are now 13 times more likely than in preindustrial times phys.org. “With 1.3°C of warming, we are seeing new extremes… heading for up to 3°C this century unless we rapidly cut fossil fuels,” warned study co-author Theodore Keeping phys.org.

Space & Astronomy

Marsquakes Confirm Mars Has a Solid Metal Core

Seismic readings from NASA’s InSight Mars lander have revealed that Mars possesses a solid inner core, much like Earth’s. A Chinese-led team analyzed faint marsquake waves and found Mars’ inner core extends ~613 km (~380 mi) from the center, likely made of iron and nickel, surrounded by a molten outer core phys.org. Previously, scientists suspected Mars’ core was fully liquid; this new finding (published in Nature) confirms a small solid center. “Our results suggest that Mars has a solid inner core making up about one-fifth of the planet’s radius – roughly the same proportion as Earth’s inner core,” said lead author Daoyuan Sun of the University of Science and Technology of China phys.org. The solid Martian core was inferred from subtle differences in how seismic waves traveled through the planet. The InSight lander, before going silent in 2022, detected over 1,300 marsquakes; Sun’s team focused on 23 quakes that provided especially clear core-transiting signals phys.org phys.org. The data show Mars’ inner core is solid metal (radius ~380 mi) with a liquid outer core extending out to ~1,800 km phys.org – very similar in core structure proportions to Earth phys.org. University of Maryland geophysicist Nicholas Schmerr, who was not involved, praised the result but noted many questions remain about Mars’ core composition and formation latimes.com latimes.com. With InSight now offline, further progress may await future Mars seismic networks. Still, this discovery offers a new piece of the puzzle in understanding Mars’ geologic history and why, unlike Earth, the red planet lacks a global magnetic field (possibly due to the core cooling and solidifying) latimes.com.

JWST Eyes a Possible “Primordial” Galaxy

Astronomers may have finally glimpsed a long-sought relic of the early universe: a “pristine” galaxy nearly devoid of heavier elements. In a study led by Takahiro Morishita (Caltech/IPAC) and submitted to Nature, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) identified an ancient galaxy, nicknamed AMORE6, at redshift z≈5.7 – meaning we see it as it was less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang scitechdaily.com. Crucially, JWST’s spectroscopy found no trace of oxygen or other “metal” elements in AMORE6’s light scitechdaily.com. In cosmic terms, “metals” (elements heavier than helium) are forged by stars, so a total absence would indicate AMORE6 could be a primordial Population III galaxy – composed of the universe’s first generation of stars, which formed from only hydrogen and helium scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. Until now, no galaxy completely lacking metals had been confirmed, though theory predicts early-universe galaxies started pure before stellar alchemy began scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. AMORE6 was detected behind a foreground galaxy cluster (Abell 2744) whose gravity helped magnify it scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. JWST observed a strong hydrogen emission (Hβ line) but zero O III emission, indicating an extremely low metallicity environment scitechdaily.com. “The absence of [O III] immediately indicates that AMORE6 harbors a very low-metallicity, near pristine interstellar medium,” the authors write scitechdaily.com. If confirmed, AMORE6 would be the first-known galaxy of Population III stars, offering direct evidence for the first generation of star formation in the universe. This bolsters the Big Bang model’s predictions and helps fill in a missing chapter of cosmic history: how the earliest stars and galaxies enriched the universe with heavier elements scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. Follow-up observations are planned to further vet AMORE6’s composition and confirm whether it truly contains zero metals, as the implications for cosmology would be profound.

Medicine & Health

3-Minute At-Home Test Detects Alzheimer’s Years Early

A new tool could revolutionize dementia diagnosis: a simple 3-minute EEG test called Fastball that spots Alzheimer’s-related memory impairment years before symptoms usually allow diagnosis. Researchers from the University of Bath and University of Bristol reported in Brain Communications that their Fastball EEG reliably detected subtle memory deficits in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) – often a precursor to Alzheimer’s – well before clinical diagnosis bath.ac.uk. The test is noninvasive and amazingly straightforward: patients wear a cap measuring brainwaves while viewing rapid images on a screen. No active participation or remembering is required; Fastball passively monitors the brain’s recognition responses. In the study, Fastball was even successfully administered in people’s homes using portable EEG devices bath.ac.uk, showing it can work outside a lab or hospital. “We’re missing the first 10 to 20 years of Alzheimer’s with current diagnostic tools. Fastball offers a way to change that – detecting memory decline far earlier and more objectively, using a quick and passive test,” said Dr. George Stothart, the lead neuroscientist on the project bath.ac.uk. Importantly, early detection could pair with emerging Alzheimer’s drugs (like donanemab and lecanemab) that are most effective in the disease’s initial stages sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. By flagging at-risk patients sooner, Fastball EEG could open the door to earlier interventions, monitoring disease progression, and timely support. The researchers envision Fastball being scaled up for use in GP clinics or community screenings to catch dementia changes as early as possible sciencedaily.com bath.ac.uk. It’s a promising development giving hope that Alzheimer’s could be diagnosed (and treated) far earlier than it is today.

Heavy Artificial Sweetener Use Linked to Faster Cognitive Decline

New research is raising concern about the long-term brain impacts of popular artificial sweeteners found in diet sodas and snacks. A large Brazilian study of 12,772 middle-aged adults (average age 52) found that those who consumed the highest amounts of artificial sweeteners experienced a significantly faster decline in memory and thinking skills over time compared to those consuming the least sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. The study, published in the Neurology journal, tracked participants’ diets and cognitive test performance over ~8 years. High sweetener consumers (avg. 191 mg/day from products containing aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, etc.) had a 62% faster overall cognitive decline, equivalent to about 1.6 extra years of brain aging relative to the low-sweetener group sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. Notably, the effect was strongest in people under age 60 and those with diabetes, who may rely more on sugar substitutes sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. “Low- and no-calorie sweeteners are often seen as a healthy alternative to sugar, however our findings suggest certain sweeteners may have negative effects on brain health over time,” said study author Dr. Claudia Suemoto of the University of São Paulo sciencedaily.com. The researchers emphasize that this observational study does not prove causation sciencedaily.com – but the association raises a red flag. One hypothesis is that artificial sweeteners might alter gut microbiota or metabolic responses in ways that indirectly affect the brain. For now, the advice isn’t to panic, but to be mindful: those in the study who used sweeteners most liberally showed earlier and steeper cognitive decline on tests of memory, verbal fluency and executive function sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com. Further studies (including controlled trials) are needed to confirm the link and understand the mechanism. In the meantime, moderation with diet drinks and “sugar-free” foods could be prudent until we fully understand how these sugar substitutes might be influencing our brains sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com.

Climate & Environment

Climate Change Supercharged Summer Wildfires in the Mediterranean

A new climate attribution study has quantified the significant role of global warming in this summer’s devastating wildfires across Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. According to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network of scientists, the extreme heat and drought conditions that fueled the blazes were made far more intense and likely by human-induced climate change phys.org. The analysis found that the 2025 Mediterranean wildfire season – the worst on record in Europe – saw fires burn more than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land and claim at least 20 lives phys.org. The WWA study concludes those fires were 22% more intense than they would have been without today’s level of warming phys.org. It also determined that prolonged hot, dry spells setting the stage for ignitions are now at least 10 times more likely in the Eastern Mediterranean compared to preindustrial times (and one metric showed up to 13× likelihood for week-long hot/dry periods) phys.org. “Our study finds an extremely strong climate change signal towards hotter and drier conditions,” said co-author Theodore Keeping of Imperial College London, noting that with the planet ~1.3 °C warmer than preindustrial, we’re already seeing unprecedented wildfire behavior phys.org. “Today… we are seeing new extremes in wildfire behaviour that has pushed firefighters to their limit. But we are heading for up to 3 °C [of warming] this century unless countries more rapidly transition away from fossil fuels,” Keeping warned phys.org. The Eastern Mediterranean’s summer 2025 was exceptionally brutal: extended 40 °C+ heatwaves, bone-dry soils (14% less rain fell last winter than historically normal) phys.org, and strong “Etesian” winds combined to create a tinderbox. Climate change made such a confluence of extreme heat and drought markedly more probable, the WWA team found. Experts say this is a glimpse of a “new normal” of ferocious fire seasons in Southern Europe as global temperatures rise phys.org. Strengthening fire management and climate adaptation is urgent, but scientists stress that without cutting greenhouse emissions, regions like the Mediterranean will face ever-worsening wildfire risk in coming decades phys.org phys.org.

Technology & Engineering

“Quantum-Inspired” Computer Solves Problems at Room Temperature

Engineers in California have unveiled a prototype quantum-inspired computer that can tackle complex problems in new ways – all without cryogenic cooling. The device, developed by a UCLA and UC Riverside team, is a type of analog Ising machine built from networks of coupled oscillators (circuits that fluctuate at certain frequencies) scitechdaily.com. It leverages exotic quantum material properties to perform computations and finds solutions when the oscillators synchronize. In a paper in Physical Review Applied, the researchers describe using a 2D charge-density-wave material (tantalum sulfide) that links the oscillators’ electrical and vibrational states, effectively bridging quantum physics and classical electronics scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. Unlike conventional quantum computers (which need near-zero temperatures to maintain delicate quantum states), this system runs at room temperature by design scitechdaily.com. It excels at solving combinatorial optimization problems – complex tasks like network route planning, scheduling, or protein folding – by exploiting the natural tendency of the oscillator network to settle into a minimum-energy state (the optimal solution) scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. The prototype solved an example “max-cut” graph partitioning problem, and ongoing work is scaling it up. “Our approach is physics-inspired computing… It uses physical processes directly, thus achieving greater energy efficiency and speed,” said UCLA professor Alexander Balandin, who led the project scitechdaily.com. In essence, instead of crunching 1s and 0s sequentially, this analog machine lets the physics of coupled oscillators work in parallel to compute the answer – a bit like how an analog harmony finds its equilibrium. The result is a kind of quantum-esque computation (due to the quantum nature of the material’s electron–phonon interactions) but on a chip that integrates with normal electronic components scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com. This breakthrough hints at future special-purpose computers that could solve certain NP-hard optimization problems much faster and with a fraction of the energy of today’s silicon-based CPUs. The team’s next steps include scaling the oscillator network and interfacing this “quantum material” hardware with standard CMOS tech to tackle real-world data problems scitechdaily.com.

Sources:

• Space & Astronomy – Mars core: Nature study via Associated Press phys.org phys.org; JWST galaxy: Universe Today report scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com.
• Medicine & Health – Fastball Alzheimer’s test: University of Bath press release bath.ac.uk bath.ac.uk; Sweeteners & cognition: American Academy of Neurology/Neurology journal via ScienceDaily sciencedaily.com sciencedaily.com.
• Climate & Environment – Mediterranean wildfires: WWA study via Associated Press phys.org phys.org phys.org.
• Technology – Quantum-inspired computer: California NanoSystems Institute release via SciTechDaily scitechdaily.com scitechdaily.com.