Tag: science

  • What Biology and Apes Can Reveal About Human Social Organization

    What Biology and Apes Can Reveal About Human Social Organization

    Viewing human behavior from a strictly biological perspective opens up transformative possibilities for human-centered technologies and intuitive environments that can nurture human relationships, fostering belonging and connection, rather than defaulting to rejection and division.

    A major obstacle to this understanding is the deep-seated boundary humans draw between themselves and the rest of the animal kingdom. While comparative studies often use one species (such as chimpanzees, dogs, bears, ants, bees, and so forth), such initiatives can bore and lose stamina for the simple reason that humans have little in common with any animal species in isolation. On the other hand, by analyzing humans from the perspective of the family (biologically speaking) they belong to – the ape family – a lot of great insights can arise.

    Within apes, the ability to deftly navigate the social environment has observable consequences for the reproductive success and survival of individuals within the ape group, which usually has a proportion between males and females of 1:1 (while reproduction is a choice rather than a necessity in modern human societies, the underlying biological hardware remains entirely geared toward it).

    From a developmental perspective, all apes have a late reproductive maturation. They have just one pair of mammary glands, which means low fecundity (offspring usually with one or two individuals). Female apes have long gestations, giving birth to large neonates, followed by a long lactational period.

    All ape infants have slow postnatal growth, leading to extensive investment in each individual, with childbearing usually shared by different group members.

    Considering a spectrum between precocial (animals that are fully developed after birth, need little parental care for survival) and altricial (animals that are underdeveloped after birth, need constant parental care for survival), apes are more on the altricial part of the spectrum when compared to other mammals.

    During their juvenile period, little apes often learn skills from other apes through playing, where they gain experience in feeding, avoiding predators, and, most importantly, navigating the social structures of the ape group. 

    Motoric features of fixed action patterns like aggression display, alimentation, and sexual interest are hardwired into the apes’ bodies. Still, the appropriate display of those traits is learned from the ape group, with ape biology being extremely flexible to accommodate, first and foremost, belonging. 

    Moving to the realm of behavior associated with biology, things start to get even more interesting.

    All apes have their reproductive traits fully developed when they reach adulthood (obviously not considering diseases). This means that apes are not eusocial (in eusocial animals, only a few members of the group are biologically able to reproduce, with all its other members cooperating for the reproduction and care of the offspring, like ants, bees, and wasps, some shrimp, and some rodents). Consequently, all rank systems within ape groups are socially constructed. 

    All apes present flexible and complex social organizations, often overlapping social models, with all individuals being relevant to the ape group even when they are no longer in their reproductive years. 

    Apes can organize themselves into 

    • hierarchies – a group that performs daily and seasonal activities together whose components agree on a ranking system that formalizes unequal access to limited resources
    • fission-fusion societies – the size and composition of the group changes according to the tasks the members have to perform daily and seasonally
    • Solitary and social – solitary group members interact occasionally, ranging through an extensive territory. 

    When in the wild, all animals behave as part of their ecosystem, contributing to their reproduction and survival as a whole. In the case of apes, they are agroforestry farmers (through their dietary habits, they promote the spread of various plants) and occasional predators.

    All apes present some degree of tool use to assist them on daily tasks that they learned from observing other animals (several studies confirm that learning from observing other animal species is hardwired in animal behavior).

    Some of the tools apes use have an important role in foraging for food and shelter, while others are simply rituals performed for social belonging that are often passed through generations without making any other practical sense (like orangutans that bathe with soap). 

    Grounding the human story in shared biological reality can offer a refreshing perspective for human societies in general. Cultivating this kind of scientific curiosity makes it far easier to bridge gaps, foster empathy, and design a more integrated world.

    As a species, especially over the last few years, human societies worldwide are very divided and polarized. Maybe biology can give a clue as to how we can all – again- feel that we belong.

    All references for this article can be found here.

  • About Fossils and Species

    About Fossils and Species

    A fossil is any preserved remains, impressions, or traces of any once-living organism(s) imprinted in rocks that enable its identification as being from a (past) geological age.

    Since organisms started to inhabit the Earth’s surface, body decomposition is the norm after their death, affecting the great majority of organisms. For fossilization to happen, it means that decomposition cannot happen, which is, at Earth’s surface, extremely rare. 

    Still, some body parts of organisms that are calcium-rich (like teeth, shells, bones, and so forth) can stand for thousands (sometimes millions) of years without being decomposed, also becoming fossils. 

    Despite a combination of a recently developed better understanding of plate tectonics theory and technological advances in radiometric dating (the rates at which various radioactive elements decay show how long ago they were incorporated into the rock), it is still challenging for paleontology to work out fossil ages (especially isolated bones and teeth) because the beds that preserve the fossils are typically lacking the radioactive elements (common only in rocks with a volcanic origin) necessary for accurate dating. 

    On the other hand, the fossilization of a whole organism (which requires that decomposition does not happen) is often associated with ultra-rare events triggered by toxic (and anoxic) gas eruptions from the mantle (usually happening in deep lakes) spanning from 1.000.000.000 to 37 years ago. Those anoxic events generate fossil sites with exceptional preservation (called lägerstatten – German for storage places) that are fairly distributed throughout the Earth’s surface. 

    Because of all those difficulties in fossilization itself, today, it is generally accepted by paleontology that the fossil record is vastly incomplete (only less than 5% of the number of known living species have been discovered through fossils, suggesting that the number of species known through fossils must be far less than 1% of all species that ever lived) and that its interpretation is filled (and fuelled) with cultural biases. 

    Those technological difficulties in dating fossil findings, together with the rarity of its appearance, are compounded by the way paleontologists often call a single sample like a bone or tooth a new “species,” which in this case means more something like a “specimen” and therefore should not be taken as the definition of species as we see in biology  

    The largest group of organisms whose males and females can mate and reproduce, generating fertile offspring. 

    It is important to highlight that a fossil find is nothing more than the remains of a single organism. 

    A single organism can represent a species (biology) to the extent that this representation is not used to infer over whole populations (within organisms belonging to the same species, it is common to find different diets, social behaviors, morphology, and so forth). 

    Specifically, in the case of primates (humans included), the fossil record is mainly composed of scattered remains like teeth and bone fragments, with lägerstatten with primates being extremely rare (to illustrate, this is a world map of primate fossil finds (humans included), with the ages of the fossils and the places they were found).

    The nature of the primate fossil record poses a challenge for accurate dating, while making the analysis of the specimens’ age, gender, and morphology difficult. Also, due to the lack of technological development, even primate fossil findings that were done many years ago could have their analyses done just recently. 

    When contextualizing the findings of primate fossil records, instead of using contemporary notions of geography without taking into consideration the actual environmental conditions found at Earth’s surface (something fundamental, such as the position of the continents, for example), attaching human fossil finds to contemporary cultures as a totem could become a huge historical and scientific mistake. 

    Within the primates, at least all humans inhabiting Earth’s surface today are part of the same species (biologically speaking); therefore, a fossil specimen, no matter how old or significant, should not be conflated with a biological species, nor should it be used to anchor cultural identity. 

    The fossil record is a small sample humans have throughout the time of a vast, chaotic, complex, and still waiting-to-be-understood system found in the biosphere.

    All references for this article that are not linked to the content can be found here.

  • Adaptation Is Not Random

    Adaptation Is Not Random

    Since the biosphere started to become relevant on Earth’s surface, around 575.000.000 years ago, diverse microorganisms, macroorganisms, plants, and animals have all been shaped by the environmental conditions at Earth’s surface in a given space and time through their metabolism.

    Metabolism, in turn, is responsible for fabricating the genes that shape them throughout the years, with distinct species developing similar features throughout the same period of time. The intertwined relationship between a given environment and its inhabitant organisms is what the scattered fossil record humans have so far portrays.

    To illustrate, somewhere between 200,000,000 and 145,000,000 years ago, according to the fossil record, wings (as they are today) appeared together in both birds and insects.

    The same pattern appeared again 55.000.000 years ago. Spanning some 200.000 years, planet Earth’s surface temperatures hit a threshold of warm climate, with surface temperatures ranging from 5 to 8 degrees Celsius hotter than the long-term average inferred from geological records.

    Curiously, not all of the globe experienced the same warm temperatures. Data show that the poles managed to get warmer while the tropics maintained their temperature (a combination of global climate dynamics associated with Earth’s mantle activity can explain this phenomenon), with tropical forests occurring on all landmasses throughout Earth’s surface.

    In response to such a scenario, some terrestrial mammals adapted to life in trees started to appear in fossil records. These mammals, called primates, have a set of distinct characteristics to make use of the trees, such as mobile shoulder girdles (that allow them to climb trees), opposable thumbs (to hold branches better), and the presence of nails (to maintain a tight grip and perform fine motor movements).

    Continuing along the same line of thinking, by 50.000.000 years ago, there was a considerable rise in sea levels with increasing availability of marine organic matter and a decrease in terrestrial organic matter. Under such environmental pressures, terrestrial mammals transitioned to aquatic life, with whales and dolphins appearing in the fossil record around this time. In 2026, several studies confirmed these scenarios, including one from June 2026, which described a whale fossil whose teeth show an intermediate stage between the grinding teeth of land-dwelling ancestors and the sharper, slicing teeth of early aquatic predators.

    Last but not least, by 37.000.000 years ago, large lakes were present on Earth’s surface, making the largest terrestrial mammal—elephants—transition into a semi-aquatic lifestyle, explaining their furless skin, which humans can witness today.

    In this way, according to empirical evidence, organisms simply respond and adapt to their environmental conditions through their metabolism, primarily focused on their own reproduction and survival. 

    In the case that the organisms’ environmental conditions change to the point that it affects their metabolism, their metabolisms will change, and consequently, their genetic composition also changes, which may or may not give rise to a new species over the years. 

    Demystifying the relationship between environment and metabolism is not just an academic exercise. It is the foundation for understanding how the environments are shaping life today.

    The same forces that gave primates their opposable thumbs, whales their aquatic bodies, and elephants their furless skin are still at work. Humans are not exempt.

    The question is not whether life is being shaped. The question is whether humans will pay attention to what is being built.

    All references for this article that are not linked to the content can be found here.

  • Explosions are not Creation

    Explosions are not Creation

    A new essay about an impact shower on the terrestrial planets that happened almost concomitant to the beginning of multicellular life on the Earth’s surface, about 800.000.000 years ago, comes at a very convenient time. 

    Recently, debris from a SpaceX rocket collided with the Moon’s surface, creating a new crater and blasting material into space. The incident has renewed concerns about the growing problem of space debris (as if space exploration didn’t already have enough challenges).

    What is interesting about all these recent “scientific” happenings is the zeitgeist that (after many years) is still alive and kicking – that violent explosions and collisions can be for the best, and in some cases even necessary as Life triggers. 

    Pop-science tropes often cling to the idea that explosions, collisions, and bombs do not necessarily signify destruction, chaos, sadness, or loss. Ironically, the underlying message is that these destructive events can somehow be restorative (??) and signify new beginnings. While this trope discourse is becoming increasingly tiresome—likely due to the saturation of cinematic storytelling—the barrier to empirical evidence still remains.

    To illustrate, around 66.000.000 years ago, the South Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea were already in existence. The rearrangement of the continents (along with the tectonic plates) triggered geological activity that triggered atmospheric changes, which, together with the dramatic lowering of sea levels, led to a powerful extinction event. Geological data also shows that a massive astronomical body struck Earth’s surface around the same time, causing acid rain, freezing temperatures, and releasing particles in the atmosphere that would block sunlight. 

    According to pop science, the astronomical body collision was, alone, responsible for the extinction of the Dinosaurs and triggered the rise of mammals; therefore, the bombing that came from space was, all in all, good, because without it, we, human mammals, could not exist.  

    However, recent studies state that the aftermath of the massive astronomical body collision was likely fleeting – freezing temperatures reversed after 3 years, acid rain probably dissipated after 10 years, and the dust blocking the sunlight lasted up to a year. In addition, the fossil data about this particular extinction event does not indicate any pattern that this event was any different from the previous ones in terms of time span (thousands to millions of years) and number of species (proportionally). Also, according to empirical evidence, mammals started to inhabit the Earth’s surface millions of years before.

    Therefore, a meteor did hit the Earth’s surface around 66.000.000 years ago, but it is unlikely that it was alone responsible for the extinction event that included the dinosaurs – or the rise of mammals.

    It should go without saying, yet it bears repeating – It is very important to stop glorifying explosions and big destructive events as the catalyst of anything. Explosions shatter existing systems; they do not construct new ones. 

    Science advances when empirical evidence leads the story – and, so far, the evidence shows that life builds itself through resilience and gradual adaptation, not sudden shocks, not raw destruction.

    As for 2026, perhaps humans don’t need cataclysmic drama to find wonder in their origins anymore. The story evidence-based science actually tells is infinitely richer – Life isn’t sparked by violent shocks, but woven through quiet patience, intricate balance, and amazing endurance. The slow, persistent magic is what humans might be now ready to embrace.

    All references for this article that are not linked to the content can be found here.


  • What Pangea Actually Meant for Life

    What Pangea Actually Meant for Life

    Due to the proportions of planet Earth, all features at its surface are first and foremost determined by the gravitational interactions with other astronomical bodies (like the Sun and the Moon).

    In the case of the continents, such interactions trigger the mantle materials to rise up and sink down, giving them their arrangement and size. 

    The current mass and configuration of the continents started to take their present form around 700.000.000 years ago when the continents were spread from the equator to the south pole, to subsequently start to gather closer to the south pole.

    Still, due to mantle interactions, by 350.000.000 years ago, the continents gathered from the south to the north pole, shaping a massive, monumental, and concentrated landmass – Pangea. 

    At Pangea, Earth’s surface consisted of one portion of dry solid continental crust from the south pole to the north pole, entirely surrounded by one massive ocean. 

    Pangea had a perpetually wet and warm zone around the equator (delta environments), contrasting with drier zones closer to the poles. There was no ice at the poles during this time on Earth’s surface, with warm temperatures spreading throughout the whole continental land. 

    The process of connecting the landmasses (rising and sinking of mantle materials coming together with a lot of outgassing) changed the levels of oxygen dramatically in the Earth’s surface atmosphere, which peaked around 300.000.000 years ago, with oxygen being 35% of the atmospheric composition (to contextualize, it is 22% today) and dramatically declining to 15% within only 10.000.000 years. 

    The atmospheric changes and the increasingly overall arid inland climates, together with the lack of oceanic barriers at Pangea, allowed organisms to get wildly geographically distributed in all continental landmasses, directly causing the rise of new kinds of multicellular organisms that had to ensure reproduction and survival far away from water. 

    Due to such environmental pressure, some plants responded by having a protective coat around their embryos – the first seed plants – while some animals responded by developing several features: the ability to procreate without water bodies, three membranes around their embryos, better homeostasis, a water-impermeable skin, and a robust air-breathing respiratory system (to power terrestrial locomotion) – the first amniotes. 

    At this point, it is important to highlight that regarding the embryo development feature in amniotes,  already at around 300.000.000 years ago, way more biological responsibilities were being designated to the female organisms (the ones who fabricate the egg cells) regarding reproduction, with the development inside their bodies of at least the three layers of membranes around their embryo.

    This means that female burden is not given; it was (and is) physically (environmentally) constructed. Contrary to the popular belief that evolutionary features are primarily magical or random, a closer examination reveals that metabolism is way more attached and dependent on environmental conditions to take place, and genes are the byproducts of metabolism (see my previous article). Therefore, responding to planetary constraints is what multicellular life has been doing on the planet Earth’s surface since it started (according to what we know so far) around 575.000.000 years ago. 

    Still related to Mantle activity, by 250.000.000 years ago, Pangea started to crack, with some portions of the ocean rising between the continental landmasses. The intense volcanic activities caused elevated temperatures, keeping the whole surface ice-free. Sea levels experienced intense fluctuations with surges up to 75 meters on the eustatic sea level (the distance from the center of the Earth to the sea surface), creating numerous shallow inland seas. Such environmental changes resulted in a massive extinction that affected 81% of marine and 70% of terrestrial species.

    The saga of planetary changes continues, always causing direct consequences in multicellular life (that are still going on today); that is why it is so important to understand that Pangea is not a curiosity. It is a lesson.  

    It’s about time to start deeply exploring the relationship between environment and multicellular life. 

    Life on Earth’s surface is not a force that adapts to the environments surrounding it. 

    Life on Earth’s surface is shaped by the planet’s physical conditions.

    Those statements automatically lead us to a very liberating and comforting realization – we are way more connected to the place and time we currently inhabit, instead of the ones we imagine we came from.

    All references for this article can be found in my publication, Beliefs of a Female Architect. If you enjoy science writing completely grounded in empirical evidence, check it out. It might be something for you.

  • What Life Actually Is

    What Life Actually Is

    Starting with the obvious, everything that exists on planet Earth is made out of the elements portrayed in the periodic table. 

    An atom of an element consists of an extremely dense nucleus made of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons, with negatively charged clouds – the electrons – orbiting the nucleus. The number of neutrons (isotopes) and the number of electrons (ions) can vary within the same element, therefore, what defines an element is the number of protons in its core (1 proton hydrogen, 2 protons helium, and so forth).

    Since the stars in the universe were ignited not earlier than 13.650.000.000 years ago, a reaction that occurs at their core called nuclear fusion has been “burning” hydrogen and helium, generating enormous amounts of energy and producing – as byproducts – atoms of different elements of the periodic table – up to iron (26) at the star core, up to Lead(82) at the star shell layers, and up to plutonium(94) in phenomena that can quickly generate a massive influx of neutrons (like a supernova). 

    Due to its position in the solar system, Planet Earth is made out of atoms from hydrogen(1) to plutonium(94), whose quantities and distribution within planetary layers were determined by its genesis processes. 

    At the physical conditions found on planet Earth, almost all atoms tend to bond with other atoms, and they do so through the lasting attraction between their electrons – originating molecules. 

    The molecules appear in all shapes, designs, and sizes – they can contain just two atoms of the same element (O2 oxygen gas, H2 hydrogen gas) as well as millions of atoms of different elements (RNA, DNA molecules). 

    Within all the elements that Earth is (and was) made of, one stands out as an excellent building block of molecules – carbon. Because of its intrinsic properties (number and configuration of its electrons), carbon atoms can attach with many different elements through a wide variety of bonds and shapes, enabling enormous molecules to take place (by definition, every molecule with a carbon bond is an organic molecule – for historical reasons some carbon compounds are considered inorganic). 

    Under some very specific circumstances atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen (elements that were and still are abundant on Earth) can fuse together (with smaller quantities of elements like phosphorus, sulfur, and iron) generating complex organic molecules.

    According to their composition, shape, and design, these complex organic molecules are classified as amino acids (building blocks of proteins and enzymes), lipids (building blocks of membranes), nucleotides (building blocks of genes – RNA and DNA molecules), and carbohydrates (also building blocks of genes and enzymes). 

    In order to forge these complex organic molecules, a special reaction must occur. 

    In a parallel, the same way that nuclear fusion in the stars needs certain environmental conditions to generate the energy loop that fabricates (as byproducts) the elements of the periodic table, the special reaction also needs certain (microscopic) environmental conditions to generate a (tiny) energy bolt loop that fabricates (as byproducts) the complex organic molecules. 

    This (tiny) energy loop requires a (microscopic) container with its internal walls electromagnetically charged (electrons of their atoms avid to bond), together with some fluid inside that provides atoms (the fuel) to react with the internal wall. Under these environmental conditions, a microscopic (atomic level) bolt of lightning is generated along the internal wall that reignites itself through a chain of chemical reactions that, in turn, fabricates (as byproducts) complex organic molecules (such as RNA, DNA). 

    This special reaction, this tiny lightning bolt loop fabricating complex organic molecules, is called metabolism. 

    This is an excerpt from my publication Beliefs of a Female Architect. If you enjoy science writing completely grounded in empirical evidence, it might be something for you.

    All sources that shaped this article are available at the publication Beliefs of a Female Architect.

  • Planet Earth Is Thin

    Planet Earth Is Thin

    A dynamic fusion of Earth’s solid crust, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere forms a very, very, very thin layer corresponding to less than 1% of Earth’s total volume – the Surface.

    Planet Earth’s Surface is so important that very often, even today, humans refer to it as if they are referring to the whole planet.

    Earth’s Surface has an area of around 510,070,000 km²: 361,130,000 km² (70.8%) of water and 148,940,000 km² (29.2%) of land. Its thickness ranges from 105 km to 170 km – 100 km corresponds to the atmosphere, and 5 km to 70 km corresponds to the land. To contextualize, planet Earth’s radius is around 6,371 km.

    All of this started to form around 4,500,000,000 years ago (right after the Earth and Moon forming event). At this point, the difference in temperature between Earth’s mantle and the atmosphere started to thicken Earth’s outermost solid layer. The Surface became a relatively cool but hardened shell within a few million years, with most mantle heat escaping via volcanism.

    As the heated volcanic material rose to the top, it cooled and deposited at the surface. While the planet’s external layer grew thicker and heavier, it eventually began to slowly sink back to the mantle, where it heated and returned to the surface via volcanism.

    This thicker surface created pressure on the heated mantle, which in turn made the shell layer discreetly expand. With tidal interactions, collisions with astronomical bodies, and also under the magnetosphere’s influence, the entire planet’s surface started to crack within just 40,000,000 years. 

    Those enormous chunks of cracked material began to move around on top of the mantle. The heated mantle material rose through the cracks, released heat as it approached the surface, and then sank again, setting up convection currents.

    Several convection currents moved around Earth in a process called tectonic plates. Because of their proportions, their structure, dynamics, and components are mostly influenced by gravitational interactions with other astronomical bodies, especially the Sun and the Moon.

    Since Earth’s formation, astronomical bodies—comets, meteorites, and other objects—have clashed with the planet’s Surface. Those bombardments have decreased throughout the years (there is no significant fabrication of solids after the solar system’s formation), but they still hit Earth quite often.

    Because some of those impactors were massive, leaving huge marks on Earth’s solid crust, it is easy to assume that they must significantly influence the surface’s evolution. However, mineral analyses steadily show that the Earth’s Surface structure, dynamics, and components are far more affected by what happens in Earth’s internal layers.

    This same engine that has been going on for billions of years is still running today. Recently, some interesting studies have shed light on the ongoing Earth Surface dynamics.

    One study focused on a 100 km region of the Southeast Indian Ridge, where an event released around 160 million cubic meters of lava onto the sea floor and shifted two sections of the oceanic crust apart by at least 2 meters in a matter of days. As the existing crust is pulled away from the ridge by the movement of tectonic plates, new crust is produced by magma that wells up from Earth’s core and solidifies.

    The other study revealed that eastern Africa is closer to splitting apart than previously thought. The Turkana Rift Zone in Kenya, a critical segment of the East African Rift System, is undergoing a process called “necking” (a stage in continental breakup). High-resolution seismic data show that the crystalline crust beneath the rift has thinned to about 13 km along the rift axis, revealing an active rift undergoing crustal necking. The identification of necking in the East African Rift System indicates that eastern Africa is primed for continental breakup – what was once a molten crack is now a continent in the process of becoming two. 

    Curiously, despite all evidence, it is more mainstream science that everything that affects Earth’s Surface—the crust, the atmosphere, and the biosphere—comes from outer space (from the “sky”), with popular narratives often emphasizing asteroid impacts or solar radiation as the primary shapers of Earth’s Surface. 

    It is still challenging for humans to recognize that the atmosphere, biosphere, and crust are byproducts of planetary interactions, rather than causes in themselves.

    It is important to highlight that what makes planet Earth’s Surface so remarkable is not its thickness, but its thinness. It is not its permanence, but its dynamism. It is not its stability, but its relentlessness.

    The evidence that Earth’s Surface is dynamic, fragile, and constantly changing is not a matter of opinion. Empirical evidence is not a political statement, and it does not need to be believed to be true. It is data. 

    And yet, the acknowledgment of these facts (and what they mean for the human relationship with the planet) remains entangled in political debate. 

    The question is not whether to believe it. The question is what to do with it.

    Whether to act on the evidence, or to protect the Surface that sustains all life, is not a matter of choice – it is a matter of necessity.

    The Surface does not care about human politics. It will continue to crack, to spread, to build new crust, to change its atmosphere, to tear continents apart. The only question is whether humans will recognize what is happening in time to respond.


  • Water Is Not That Clear

    Water Is Not That Clear

    Around 4.500.000.000 years ago, 10.000.000 after the Moon-forming event, a day on Earth was about 6 hours long, and the Moon was way closer – 24.000 to 32.000 km away from Earth (today it is 383.000Km). The Sun was a fast-spinning baby star, taking 9 to 10 days per spin (today, it is 24 (equator) and 35 (poles) days). 

    The Moon-forming event increased Earth’s and Moon’s temperatures while making them intensely spin and rotate around each other. With such loaded energies, the initial tidal interactions between Earth and Moon were more violent, resulting in energies being dissipated at a faster pace, with both objects considerably slowing their rotation and spin within their first millions of years. At this point, the Sun was way more radioactive despite having lower temperatures (nuclear fusion was just starting). 

    A stream of charged particles, the solar wind, was reaching the terrestrial planets, making radioactivity at least 5 times higher than today. The solar wind and the intense tidal interactions between Earth and the Moon created a layer of charged particles early on, a combined magnetosphere around both objects. In turn, the magnetosphere enables a layer of gas to be trapped between the planet’s surface and space – the atmosphere.

    Still around 4.500.000.000 years ago (due to gravity, rotation, and tidal interactions), the densest materials (metals like iron and nickel) were sinking to form Earth’s metallic core at the same time that the less dense materials (silica-like) were accumulating in a layer around the core called the mantle. 

    Near the mantle surface, the pressure and temperatures caused the mantle minerals to split their chemical compositions, releasing gases and water molecules (roughly 7% of the mantle minerals have 2% of their composition made out of water molecules – which (due to the mantle proportions) is enough to fabricate several oceans like the ones we have at Earth’s surface today). The water molecules from the mantle outgassing could get trapped at the planet’s surface because of the atmosphere, making planet Earth (probably already) with water on its surface.

    This is a brief description of HOW and WHEN water appeared on Earth’s surface, according to scientific knowledge based exclusively on empirical evidence.

    Believe it or not, scientists are only recently (perhaps) beginning to understand WHAT water actually is.

    As commonly known, water behaves differently than any other liquid at Earth’s surface. It gets less dense (expands) at freezing temperatures, which is why ice floats on liquid water. It has a high boiling point compared to other liquids. And it has a high surface tension, creating a membrane-like outer layer that makes it more resistant and cohesive in its liquid form (which explains why insects can walk on water and why water droplets assume a spherical shape). These are just a few of the several “anomalous” features that water, as it is known at the Earth’s surface, presents.

    Over the past three decades, advancements in computational modeling have significantly improved the accuracy of molecular simulations. This progress has allowed for detailed studies of the behavior and structure of water molecules, particularly in conditions that cannot be found on the Earth’s surface.

    These studies provide evidence that water has two distinct states, that those two states are interconvertible, and that ice has at least 21 different forms – and the list continues to grow. 

    Under different pressures and temperatures, water solidifies into distinct crystalline structures, each with its own molecular arrangement and density. The familiar ice from a freezer is Ice Ih, a hexagonal structure found on Earth’s surface. But in the upper atmosphere, Ice Ic—a cubic form—can exist. Under high pressure, dozens of other phases emerge, from Ice II to Ice XXI, each with different properties.

    Under extreme pressures and temperatures, oxygen atoms remain fixed while hydrogen protons flow like a liquid, resulting in superionic ice, which is believed to exist in large amounts deep inside Uranus and Neptune, whose movement of protons generates the unusual magnetic fields observed around these planets.

    In addition to these forms, water can also freeze into a glassy, non-crystalline state called amorphous ice. There are at least three types (low-density, high-density, and very high-density amorphous ice), with the amorphous form believed to be the most common ice in the universe.

    From all these data, one thing is safe to say – the water molecule H₂O is remarkably adaptable and can assume many different designs, always reacting to temperature and pressure (together or in isolation) to determine its state and, consequently, its molecular structure.

    Curiously, like many other things in “science”, researchers often take for granted that what humans experience at Earth’s surface is “normal” or “standard”, only to become disappointed with the results of their experiments.

    What happens at Earth’s surface is not universal or common. The acknowledgment that the ice found on Earth’s surface (ice I) is extremely rare in the universe is, somehow, painful because it leads to an inconvenient truth – that humans do not know a lot about everything.

    Actually, humans know very little about very little. Things are still not given, controlled, or known. Interestingly, since the dawn of written records, humans have consistently believed they were at the peak of their knowledge, mastering their own time—only to become a laughable footnote to generations to come. In many ways, we are still similar to the ones who lived many years ago.

    Perhaps, for the first time in history, humans should acknowledge how little is actually known—about water, about everything—and from that starting point, build what could be a truly new age for human knowledge. At the very least, with such a humble starting point, perhaps striving to “know about everything” can get more interesting.

  • The Moon is way more than just a stopover

    The Moon is way more than just a stopover

    According to empirical evidence, somewhere between 4.537.000.000 and 4.510.000.000 years ago, as a consequence of the Solar System’s formation, Earth could barely hold itself together; its shape was an ellipsoid, and it no longer had a surface, just a layer of rock gas that gets denser with depth. 

    An impact with another astronomical body occurs that makes Earth spin even faster, making it hotter until its equator can no longer remain coupled. Parts of the equator break off, vaporize, and settle into an orbit, forming a disk. The disk rapidly flares into a giant donut-shaped structure whose surroundings settle into the “lunar seed”, growing the Moon with no volatiles. 

    After just a few years, the donut-shaped structure shrank to inside the Moon’s orbit, and a newly formed large Moon emerged (the biggest Moon of the solar system, 1% of Earth’s mass), with Earth and Moon sharing the same isotopic profile (same number of neutrons in the atoms of their elements). 

    Tidal interactions between the Earth and the Moon act as a gravitational arm against Earth, affecting the orbital inclination and tilt of both (Earth and Moon). It gradually pulls the Earth’s axis tilt to 23.5 degrees while bringing the Moon’s orbit inclination to 5 degrees relative to the ecliptic (Earth plane orbit relative to the Sun) that we can observe today. According to the rock record, this process ended 4.510.000.000 years ago, the last time Earth’s global silicate system had been mixed. Lunar samples also state the same. 

    Over the years, the Earth and Moon relationship has become more entangled, intertwined, and sophisticated.  As for today, just one little aspect of it, the Moon’s gravitational pull, creates the ocean tides that in turn drive ocean currents and influence climate patterns across the Earth’s surface. 

    A 2018 study elegantly established the statistical correlation between El Niño and the Moon’s 18.6-year tidal cycle. El Niño events tend to occur in specific years relative to the lunar nodal cycle—specifically the 1st, 10th, and 13th years after the peak of the cycle. La Niña events, in contrast, tend to occur in the 3rd, 12th, and 16th years. Despite the resistance to such (lunatic) claims, and much criticism of this study (including a 2025 one), the statistical correlation itself has not been disproven.  

    In June 2026, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed the existence of an enormous cavern beneath the Moon’s surface—about 50 kilometers long and 100 meters wide. The cavern could serve as a natural shelter for future astronauts, protecting them from solar radiation and extreme temperatures. Contrary to the study that connects the Moon cycle and climate patterns, the discovery was received with great enthusiasm by the scientific community. 

    The enthusiasm is understandable—a natural lunar shelter is a remarkable finding. But it also reveals a pattern: the space race celebrates what can be used, while neglecting what is there and is not yet understood.

    The 24-hour rotation, gravity, tides, climate stability, and biological rhythms are all byproducts of the Earth and Moon relationship that has been going on for billions of years and that are still poorly understood. 

    And yet, curiously, the space race operates as if the Moon is merely a stepping stone. Plans for lunar bases and mining operations proceed as if the Moon is a resource to be extracted – rather than a partner to be understood.

    Perhaps there is a lesson here from colonization – The assumption that humans can arrive, take what they need, and move on has a poor track record. A more effective approach might be to start by understanding interactions. 

    There is no evidence that humans could reproduce or survive on a planet without a Moon like Earth’s Moon. The Moon is as crucial to human existence as Earth itself. That is why knowing about its origins — and its ongoing influence — matters so much.

    Learn first, before destroying. Recognize before the deadline what we actually depend on. Perhaps this time around, we might be able to make what is important not available for exploitation. 

    If you enjoy science writing, you can check my publication, Beliefs of a Female Architect. It unfolds what happened from the Big Bang to today’s world, completely grounded in empirical evidence. I’d be delighted to see you there.

  • The Solar System Ghost

    The Solar System Ghost

    In 2019, a meteorite was found in the Sahara Desert named Northwest Africa 12774. In 2025, a team of researchers started analyzing it and realized that this meteorite belongs to a rare class of meteorites called angrites. There are fewer than 100 angrites out of the more than 80,000 meteorites discovered on Earth’s surface.

    By analyzing Northwest Africa 12774’s chemical fingerprints, scientists found that the number of neutrons in the atoms of its elements (isotopes), specifically oxygen and chromium, matched the composition of astronomical bodies in the solar system.

    By measuring the decay of radioactive elements inside Northwest Africa 12774 (which act as natural clocks), scientists determined that it crystallized from molten rock just 4 million years after the first solids formed in the solar system. This dates it to about 4.56 billion years ago, making it one of the oldest known volcanic rocks of the solar system. Only material that formed alongside the Sun and its surrounding disk of gas and dust could be this old.

    In addition, by testing Northwest Africa 12774’s mineralogy, scientists observed that the meteorite contains crystals of a mineral called clinopyroxene that are unusually rich in aluminum. To forge these specific crystals, the rock had to be subjected to immense pressure that could only be generated inside a large, differentiated body, not a small, undifferentiated asteroid. Scientists calculated that the “angrite parent body” must have been at least 1,000 km (620 miles) in radius. If the crystals formed at a shallow depth, the body could have been as large as 3,600 km (2,200 miles)—comparable in size to the Moon or even Mars.

    Although Northwest Africa 12774 was not seen falling from the sky and its exact path through space cannot be tracked, its classification as an angrite links it to a specific group of meteorites overwhelmingly associated with the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

    To contextualize where and what the asteroid belt actually is, it might be useful to recap what the solar system consists of today:

    • One star: The Sun.
    • Orbiting the Sun in different directions: Comets (because they were formed either entirely outside or on the very outskirts of the solar system).
    • Orbiting the Sun in the same direction:
      • The terrestrial planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth (with 1 moon), and Mars (with 2 moons).
      • The asteroid belt: Between 1 and 2 million asteroids composed of rocky, refractory materials, where Ceres (a dwarf planet) is the largest object.
      • The giant planets: The gas giants (the number of moons grew exponentially over the last few years) – Jupiter with 95 moons, Saturn with 146 moons; The ice giants – Uranus with 27 moons, Neptune with 16 moons.
      • The Kuiper belt: An icy ring with millions of objects made mostly out of ice and volatile elements, featuring proto-planets and dwarf planets like Pluto (with 5 moons), Eris (with 1 moon), Haumea (with 2 moons), and Makemake (with 1 confirmed moon).

    Essentially, scientists are able to know all about the size, chemical composition, and age of all these solar system objects through two main sources of evidence.

    First: telescopes. By analyzing their images, scientists can infer the size, speed, and rotation of astronomical bodies. By analyzing the light and spectrum of Solar System objects, astronomers can determine their chemical composition.

    Second: meteorites. Minerals that either fall to Earth’s surface from space or are sitting at the Earth’s surface waiting to be found carry the chemical signatures of their parent bodies. 

    By comparing meteorite compositions with those observed through telescopes, scientists can piece together the solar system’s makeup.

    It is important to highlight that understanding how, when, and why the solar system developed the way it did is far more valuable than simply listing and classifying its astronomical bodies. In Science, merely describing something, very often, does not move Science forward. In contrast, understanding something is what propels scientific progress.

    To illustrate, consider this timeline:

    • 5.103.200.000 years ago — A star cluster that would become the solar system was taking place in the Milky Way
    • 4.568.200.000 years ago — The first solar system solids were formed
    • 4.518.200.000 years ago — Nuclear fusion ignited the Sun
    • 4.510.000.000 years ago — Earth and the Moon formed

    Knowing these dates is useful. But they don’t change anything if they are not used to understanding why all those milestones happened the way they did. In this context, we can see the data we have as a starting point rather than as an end in itself.

    An effective approach is to look at the Solar System timeline and ask: What are the Solar System milestones that could have happened faster or differently? Are there any shortcuts in terms of planetary system formation that could take place, and does that mean that there might be other planetary systems in the universe, for instance, that could have life for a longer period of time than what happened on Earth?

    Anyway, understanding how planets formed—and what their characteristics were at specific points in time—can give a roadmap for what to look for elsewhere in the universe.

    Without making a direct association between a planet’s emergence conditions in our own solar system, we are just going to be looking for water out there for a very long time… without ever finding anything.


  • Why Black Holes Matter

    Why Black Holes Matter

    Recently, the scientific world has been baffled with the new discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope – JWST

    (as the name says, a Space Telescope, launched on December 25, 2021 that sits on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, about 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 miles) away from Earth which is nearly four times farther from Earth than the Moon is)

    of “Little Red Dots” – LRD that turned out to be black holes that were not just massive but also way older than scientists expect black holes could ever be.

    Besides the dichotomy of namegiving (little red dots = massive black holes), the research is extremely elegant. Several dedicated programs

    (Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science – CEERS, JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey – JADES, Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public Survey – NGDEEP, Public Release Imaging for Extragalactic Research – PRIMER, Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam Observations before the Epoch of Reionization –  UNCOVER, and Cosmic Evolution Survey — a project designed to map the evolution of the universe’s large-scale structure – COSMOS-Web)

    generated huge amounts of data and images about the universe.

    Machine learning algorithms grouped little red objects that were then sorted out through morphology, brightness, and color. By specifically separating some extreme combinations of color cuts, and splitting the object’s light into a rainbow of individual wavelengths through spectrographs, scientists could infer that the light in LRDs was very old coming from very far away, and that hydrogen gas was moving at incredibly high speeds in these objects.

    The vast majority of LRDs have been dated between 600 million and 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, and in about 70% of the analyzed LRDs, hydrogen gas was moving at incredibly high speeds—roughly 1,000 kilometers per second (about 2 million miles per hour) which can only be produced by gas spiraling into a supermassive black hole’s accretion disk. In addition, this discovery was also confirmed with older data from other observatories, together with a comparison with other stellar populations. Beautiful.

    But why is everyone talking about it? 

    Why black holes matter so much?

    Well, first things first. Let us all agree that name-giving is not a strong part of physicists and astronomers – calling something we know so little about a part of a human anatomy we don’t like to talk about is already an indication. 

    As weird as it seems, it is through the studies of black holes that science really comes to life. Science, empirical science, is built upon discoveries that are able to move human intelligence and technology further. Black holes are the ultimate test for fundamental physics, general relativity, the quantum gravity quest, galaxy formation, and cosmic expansion. Studying black holes isn’t just about understanding distant, exotic objects. It’s a direct path to unlocking the deepest laws of physics, understanding our cosmic origins, and potentially developing revolutionary future technologies. Black Holes sit the vanguard of intellectual thought. 

    The kind of science the study of Black Holes is about, empirical science, does not need consensus to be accurate, and that is the beauty of it. Even if everyone doesn’t like the theory or think it does not make sense, that is when black holes, across the whole universe, shine. 

    Let’s celebrate empirical science through an universe timeline.

    Around 13.800.000.000 years ago – The Big Bang
    According to its latest definition, the Big Bang is the point in history where the observable universe can be verified to have entered into a regime where the laws of physics (as we understand them) can be applied. The Big Bang theory does not explain what was there before the universe, nor why the Big Bang occurred. 

    10-43 seconds after the Big Bang 
    temperature and average energies were so high that matter (particles) could not form. The 4 fundamental forces that shape the universe – gravity, electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force – were combined and formed one fundamental force.

    Before 10-32 seconds after the Big Bang
    A phenomenon called inflation occurred – the universe suddenly, very rapidly, and exponentially expanded (from something like half of a DNA molecule in length to 100 trillion kilometers long in a tiny fraction of a second).

    About 10−30 seconds after the Big Bang
    The universe was filled with a radiation/light/field that lasted 380.000 years. This phenomenon, called the cosmic microwave background radiation, has been streaming throughout the universe since. Even though scientists are still figuring out what exactly cosmic microwave background radiation is, the images apparently capture the fundamental building block of nature – the quantum field. 

    Around 10-12 after the Big Bang
    The quantum field of gravity, the quantum electrodynamics (electromagnetic force), the gluon field (strong nuclear force), and the W and Z boson field (weak nuclear force) were able to take their present forms. 

    1 second after the Big Bang
    The quantum fields of matter bedrocks of the universe – the neutrino, the electron, the up quark, and the down quark- were already formed (there are 12 known quantum fields of matter today, of which 8 of them are “heavier” variations of the 4 bedrock ones). 

    1 minute after the Big Bang 
    The universe had atoms of the lightest and simplest element – hydrogen.

    2 minutes after the Big Bang
    Pressure and temperature were still too high in the universe, enabling a reaction called nuclear fusion to take place. With nuclear fusion, hydrogen atoms quickly fuse to form helium (the second-lightest element). 

    After 20 minutes following the Big Bang
    pressure and temperature drop to a point where nuclear fusion ends, leaving the universe with an initial composition of 75% hydrogen and 25% helium (and tiny proportions of other elements). 

    No earlier than 150.000.000 years after the Big Bang
    ignition of the first stars. 

    From 600.000.000 to 1.800,000,000 years after the Big Bang
    LRDs – Little Red Dots – Massive black holes