Science Week — #6

What if the universe just added a new kind of thing to the menu? Not a planet, not a star as we know it, not even a black hole as we picture it—but something in between. That’s where we’re starting today.

And we’ll keep our feet on the ground while we do it. This is our weekly deep dive into careful science, episode 6, looking back at the science of the week for August 18.

I’m Grace, and I’m here with Daniel. We’ve got a sky show, ancient bones with a tall tale, an unexpected fault line under New Jersey, a funding twist in Alzheimer research, and yes—the possibility of a “black hole star.” Let’s go.

New cosmic categories are great, as long as we remember the small print.

That’s why I keep you around. You carry the small print like a badge. Alright—life and the brain first.

In human origins, scientists identified two Denisovan leg bones recovered from the Penghu Channel off Taiwan. The estimate is eye-catching: the individuals might have stood around 180 to 190 centimeters tall, taller than most contemporaneous humans in that region.

This is a neat one. The key facts we have are specific: two leg bones, and height estimates in that 180–190 range. Earlier analysis of these roughly 45,000-year-old remains had already indicated heights up to 1.9 meters. So this isn’t a brand-new direction; it’s a refinement that reinforces the idea of relatively tall Denisovans in that locale.

Why does height matter here? For me, it’s less about “basketball team of the Pleistocene” and more a clue to body build, climate adaptation, maybe mobility across different landscapes.

Right, with the caution that we’re drawing from a small sample. Two leg bones can tell you something useful—anthropologists routinely estimate stature from long bones—but it’s still two. That means we should not generalize to “all Denisovans were tall.” The comparison is also regional: taller than most humans in that same time and place, which is a careful and meaningful framing.

So, a glimpse, not the whole portrait. Still, I love how a pair of bones fished from the Penghu Channel can resize our mental image of a long-gone population.

And it’s a reminder that even a single site can complicate the big story. Add more bones, the picture could sharpen—or shift.

Another story about our past, this one at the intersection of archaeology and disease history: media reports say genetic testing of two mummified individuals from northern Chile identified smallpox strains identical to European variants. The coverage frames that as confirming smallpox arrived with early colonists. Earlier reporting also mentioned DNA analysis of 13 Chilean mummy samples.

Here’s where we do our usual thing. The key point is the claim of strain identity with European variants in two mummies, and the interpretation that this supports European introduction. That matches historical narratives, but let’s weigh the evidence we’ve got.

Two individuals is a very small number. But if the sequences really line up with European strains, it’s a strong hint about direction of introduction.

Exactly—hint, not absolute proof across all times and places. The earlier mention of 13 samples suggests a broader effort, but the new reporting highlights two with specific genetic matches. We also need to note that we’re relying on media coverage here; the material doesn’t point us to a peer-reviewed paper we can audit. Details like laboratory methods, contamination controls, and dating would be critical to judge the strength of the claim.

So cautious optimism: the story aligns with historical accounts of colonial-era disease spread, and genetics is a powerful tool for testing that. But we want to see the full methods and the broader dataset.

And we should keep in mind that even if those two were infected by European-lineage smallpox, that’s a window into a particular episode, not necessarily the first or only introduction. Sampling matters.

Still, it’s powerful to see genetics and mummies come together to tell—or at least refine—a story about how disease reshaped the Americas.

To medicine and health policy, where the headlines were not about lab results but about what gets researched at all. Reports say the National Institutes of Health canceled $15 million in Alzheimer research grants at Emory University and the University of Pittsburgh, with the stated concern that the projects lacked objective variables, according to the Trump administration. The grants had supported studies on how racism and discrimination affect brain health.

That’s a consequential move. The facts we have: the amount, the two institutions, the topic focus, and the stated rationale—“lacked objective variables.” Beyond that, we shouldn’t infer intent or additional details that aren’t in the material.

I hear three takeaways. First, Alzheimer research isn’t just plaques and proteins; there’s a live question about social stressors and long-term brain health. Second, funding choices can redirect entire threads of inquiry. Third, wording like “lacked objective variables” points to a debate over how to measure and define constructs like discrimination and their biological effects.

All well put. From a methods standpoint, measuring exposure to racism or discrimination is challenging. You can use validated questionnaires, geocoded indices, or physiological proxies—but each approach raises arguments about validity and confounding. That’s why the details of study design are everything.

Regardless of where listeners land on the policy question, it’s a reminder that science is steered by what gets funded. If you pull a thread, the tapestry changes.

And we’ll emphasize the limited scope of what we know here: we’re relaying the cancellation, the cited reason, and the topic area as reported. For the rest, we’d need the underlying review documents and study protocols.

The practical bottom line is that $15 million of planned work won’t proceed as envisioned, and the brain health community will adjust in response.

Planet and geology next. Columbia University scientists mapped a previously unknown fault near Tewksbury, New Jersey, and say it likely caused the recent magnitude 4.8 earthquake. They’ve named it the Mountainville Fault and published the results in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

That’s a substantial geophysics result. Unknown faults in intraplate regions are a known challenge, and a magnitude 4.8 in that area prompts a lot of questions. The new work says the fault lies about 3.5 kilometers west of the quake, and “likely caused” it—note the careful term likely.

Right, not “definitely.” But the combination of mapping and proximity gives a strong candidate source. I like that it has a name now—the Mountainville Fault. Naming things helps people remember risk, not just researchers.

The published venue also matters. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth is a peer-reviewed journal in the field. Still, one study frames a hypothesis with evidence; aftershocks, seismic imaging, and additional fieldwork would keep testing it.

For listeners in the region, this isn’t cause for panic; it’s cause for being informed. The East Coast shakes rarely, but it shakes. If you didn’t think fault lines were part of your local vocabulary, add one new word: Mountainville.

And in the longer term, adding a previously unmapped fault to the catalog improves hazard models. Fewer surprises, better preparedness.

Also a reminder that the ground under our feet holds mysteries, sometimes just a few kilometers away.

Now the cosmos. Astronomers led by Rohan Naidu and Robert Simcoe, from the University of Hawaii and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reported the identification of what they’re calling a new class of celestial object: a “black hole star.” It’s based on James Webb Space Telescope observations, and the candidate has a designation—MoM-BH*-1. My curiosity level is off the charts.

It’s a great example of how telescopes like James Webb can surface objects that don’t fit neatly into established boxes. Here are the careful points we can make: a team led by those astronomers says they’ve identified a new class, the label is “black hole star,” and the object is cataloged as MoM-BH*-1 from James Webb data.

Which is a lot of novelty in one sentence: new class, new term, new object.

With one more caution: it’s early days. A single candidate is, by definition, a small sample. We’d want to see independent analyses and, ideally, a population—more objects with similar signatures. Also, we don’t have technical details in this material about what physical characteristics justify the term.

So we get to enjoy the wonder, but we keep our claims modest. It’s like seeing a silhouette in the fog—you can say you see a shape, but you don’t sketch the whole creature yet.

Exactly. The safe takeaway is that James Webb data have prompted a team to propose a category-defying object, with a formal designation. The next steps will be replication and more candidates.

And meanwhile, we get the fun of saying “MoM-BH*-1” and imagining the universe’s “new menu item,” as I put it earlier. Carefully imagining.

Staying in the sky, a quick follow-up we promised: the Perseid meteor shower. We talked about the forecast last week. Now we can say how it landed—literally streaked—across the sky.

The shower peaked overnight on August 12–13 under dark new-moon skies. Reports say observers saw up to 100 meteors per hour, with vivid displays noted.

That “new moon” piece really helped. No glare, just the Earth running into comet dust and the atmosphere doing its beautiful light-work. If you got out to a dark field and looked up, you had a very good night.

As always with meteor shower rates, “up to 100 per hour” is under ideal conditions. Sky darkness, viewing location, and your patience matter. But the combination of a new moon and an active Perseid stream set this up to be a strong year.

I love the civic aspect of it—neighbors out with blankets, kids learning to count way faster than math class ever convinced them to. And you didn’t have to buy a ticket; just look up.

And if your local clouds didn’t cooperate, there’s always next time. The point is, the forecast held and the peak delivered for many observers.

And we keep our promise of following up, not just hyping the preview. Eyes on the sky, and then eyes on the results.

Speaking of shared sky moments: a total solar eclipse swept across parts of mainland Europe on August 12. It was the first such event there in decades, and it drew crowds and boosted tourism. Photographers captured striking images, and even places with cloudy forecasts or limited infrastructure, like Iceland’s Westfjords at the start, still saw visitors arriving.

Eclipses are an intriguing blend of hard orbital mechanics and very human logistics. The astronomy is precise; the weather and the roads are not. The report highlights the tourism bump, which we’ve seen with other eclipses as well.

It’s one of my favorite things about science in public life: a single alignment of Sun, Moon, and Earth can move people to travel, to gather, to stand quietly together for a minute or two. And yes, to book out small hotels and overflow the local cafes.

A good stress test for towns and tripods. We should also note that while clouds can spoil the corona for some, the event still catalyzes interest and community.

And a lesson for planners: if an eclipse is coming, the visitors will come too. Even if the forecast looks dicey, people will roll the dice. The payoff is worth it.

And for anyone who did see totality, that’s a memory that anchors the week—and sometimes a lifetime.

Let’s pull the threads together. What did the week teach us about how the world works?

For me, the theme is naming and mapping. We named a previously unknown fault—the Mountainville Fault—and placed it on the map near a recent quake. We named a candidate cosmic object—MoM-BH*-1—and said it might not fit old boxes. Names matter because they frame new questions.

And mapping happens across time as well as space. Denisovan leg bones from the Penghu Channel mapped the silhouette of a tall body in an ancient world. Chilean mummies mapped a route for disease—if the genetic matches hold up, a route from European variants into the Americas.

Another thread is sample size and humility. Two mummies, two leg bones, one candidate “black hole star.” Science is comfortable with small starts as long as we remember that scale-up is needed for confidence.

And one more: the interplay of science and society. The eclipse and the Perseids reminded us that the sky can pull humanity together on a hillside. The NIH cancellations reminded us that what gets studied is not only about what is interesting, but also about what is deemed fundable.

Plus a practical benefit of careful work: a mapped fault line can inform hazard planning; an understood meteor shower forecast can steer people to dark skies; a tourism bump can support local economies. Not everything has to be a breakthrough to be valuable.

I like that. We don’t need fireworks to have light. Sometimes it’s a meteor, or a careful geologic line on a map, or a quiet lab report that says “we found a match.”

And sometimes it’s a label—“black hole star”—that is less a final answer and more a provisional signpost: look here, ask more.

Curiosity with guardrails. That’s our mood this week.

Before we go, a gentle invite. If you like your news checked and calm, come find us at factslane.com, and grab the app on the App Store or Google Play. It’s the same steady approach, in your pocket.

And if a weekly dose of science pairs well with your week, try our siblings: Good Week for a look at what went right, and Tech Week for the gear-and-code crowd.

Thank you for listening, for looking up at meteors, for caring about old bones and new ideas. I’m Grace.

I’m Daniel. Be kind to your future self and back up your data—and maybe your stargazing plan—this week.

Stay curious, and we’ll see you next week.