Scientists discover mysterious sphere in Colombia, sparking UFO speculation
The sphere, according to social media page @Truthpolex, was spotted March 2 flying over the town of Buga, Colombia, before it landed.
Jose Luis Velazquez, one of the researchers studying the three-layered sphere, noted that it shows 'no welds or joints,' characteristics normally indicative of human manufacture, which further bolstered his belief in its extraterrestrial origin.
Julia Mossbridge, the executive director of the Institute for Love and Time (TILT), and a member of the University of San Diego Department of Physics and Biophysics, told Fox News Digital she remains skeptical of its extraterrestrial origins.
'It looks to me like a really cool art project,' she said, urging caution in drawing immediate conclusions.
Mossbridge framed the mysterious object as part of a 'bigger picture' in which humanity must confront its own limitations.
'We are entering a time when we don't have the control that we thought we had,' she said, noting that prior 'grandiose' beliefs in total mastery blind us when 'something shows up that doesn't fit our model of the world.
5 Scientists in Colombia examine a metallic orb they say was captured flying through the sky of the South American country.
TRUTHPOLE/X
5 Mossbridge framed the mysterious object as part of a 'bigger picture' in which humanity must confront its own limitations.
TRUTHPOLE/X
5 Scientists claim the orb was flying through the sky unmanned.
TRUTHPOLE/X
'If an artist is doing this, why is that? Well, I think it's partly the same reason. It's because we're learning that we don't understand what's in our skies, what's in our waters. And there's something going on that's essentially bigger than us,' she said.
She says sightings of unexplained objects have been around for decades.
'Frankly, we've been looking at UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) for decades, and the federal government has admitted that there are things that we don't understand, but we are investigating them,' she said.
🚨 BREAKING – Radiologist Examines UFO Sphere That Crashed in Buga, Colombia#Ufotwitter pic.twitter.com/TFeJ8OPmhE — T R U T H P O L E (@Truthpolex) May 6, 2025
Mossbridge said the coalition of individuals working to find answers, such as the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, the UAP Disclosure Fund and the Galileo Project, are made of people of 'all political persuasions.'
'They are all trying to get rigorous information themselves, not necessarily waiting on the federal government, about what's going on in our skies, what's going on in our waters and actually trying to get international cooperation around these things,' she said. 'Because, for instance, the sphere in Colombia is in a different country. So, what are the rules about how we deal with something that's interesting that's found there?'
Mossbridge urged thorough vetting before declaring anomalies in mysterious discoveries.
'Before you decide something's anomalous or a UFO, bring the object to a group like the Galileo Project,' she said.
5 The orb is placed on a scale to measure the weight of the 'hollow' object.
TRUTHPOLE/X
5 one of the researchers studying the three-layered sphere, noted that it shows 'no welds or joints,' characteristics normally indicative of human manufacture, which further bolstered his belief in its extraterrestrial origin.
TRUTHPOLE/X
She said experts can determine if the material is 'clearly non-human-made.'
Despite her misgivings about the discovery in Buga, she said it doesn't 'discount all the other objects that are of extraterrestrial origin.'
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Vox
a day ago
- Vox
Meet the Oropouche virus. It may be visiting your city soon.
is a correspondent at Vox writing about climate change, energy policy, and science. He is also a regular contributor to the radio program Science Friday. Prior to Vox, he was a reporter for ClimateWire at E&E News. Oropouche virus disease was a relatively rare illness for decades, lurking on the margins of tropical rainforests in the Caribbean and South America. Sporadic reports of an infection causing fevers, coughs, chills, and body aches emerged among people living near or moving into the jungle. A tiny insect called a midge spreads the disease, and the earliest known case dates back to 1955 in a forest worker near a village called Vega de Oropouche in Trinidad. Since most people who were infected with the virus recovered on their own and since cases were so infrequent, it barely registered as a public health concern. But a few years ago, something changed. A major Oropouche fever outbreak beginning in 2023 infected at least 23,000 people across Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Peru. It wasn't just confined to remote wilderness areas but was spreading in metropolises like Rio de Janeiro. In some cases, travelers were infected and then brought the virus home: So far, Oropouche fever has sprung up in the US, Canada, and Europe in people returning from the afflicted region. The outbreak has killed at least five people. The sudden rise of Oropouche disease startled scientists and health officials. Since its discovery, there have only been around 500,000 known cases. By contrast, there are upwards of 400 million dengue infections each year. It's likely then that many more Oropouche infections have gone undetected, especially since its symptoms overlap with those from other diseases and there's little active screening for the virus. What you'll learn from this story What Oropouche fever is, how you can identify is and what spreads the disease. What researchers know about the startling outbreak across South American in 2023 and 2024. The threat the disease's spread poses to the United States. Now, researchers are looking back at the outbreak to try to find out what they missed and what lessons they can apply to get ahead of future epidemics. Oropouche virus is a critical case study in the complicated factors that drive vector-borne diseases. Dynamics like deforestation, urban sprawl, international travel, and gaps in surveillance are converging to drive up the dangers from infections spread by animals. And as the climate changes, new regions are becoming more hospitable to the blood suckers that spread these diseases, increasing the chances of these seemingly-remote infections making it to the US and getting established. That means more people will face threats from illnesses that they may never have considered before. 'It's very likely that these public health problems that people before called 'tropical disease' are not so tropical anymore and are basically everywhere,' said William de Souza, who studies arboviruses — viruses spread by arthropods like insects — at the University of Kentucky. 'Vector-borne disease is not a local problem; this is a global problem.' The rising specter of Oropouche fever comes at a time when the United States is cutting funding for research at universities, pulling back from studying vector-borne disease threats, and ending collaborations with other countries to limit their risk. The Oropouche virus is a classic case study in how humans worsen vector-borne disease The Oropouche virus belongs to the family of bunyaviruses. They appear as spheres under a microscope, and they encode their genomes in RNA, rather than DNA as human cells do. RNA viruses tend to have high mutation rates, making it harder to target them with vaccines and increasing the odds of reinfection. Oropuche's relatives include the viruses behind Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, spread by ticks, and Rift Valley fever, spread by mosquitoes. Oropouche spreads mainly through the bites of a 1- to 3-millimeter-long insect called, appropriately, a biting midge (Culicoides paraensis). Midges are sometimes called sand flies or no-see-ums in the US, and they breed in damp soil, rotting vegetation, and standing water. Like mosquitoes, they feed on blood to drive their reproduction, but their minuscule bodies can easily slip through mosquito nets. When a midge bites an infected host, it can pass on the pathogen to a human during a subsequent bite. There's also evidence that the virus may be sexually transmissible, but no such cases have been documented yet. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that male travelers from regions where Oropouche is spreading should not have sex for six weeks if they show symptoms of the disease. Vector-borne diseases like Oropouche continue to surprise us because there are so many variables that have to align in order to spread them — the pathogens, the vectors, the hosts, and the environment. Unlike diseases like Covid-19 or influenza, vector-borne illnesses don't spread directly from person to person. Instead, they require an animal, often arthropods like ticks, midges, and mosquitoes. The range, reproduction, and behavior of these organisms add another confounding factor in the spread of the diseases they carry. Globally, vector-borne diseases account for 17 percent of infectious diseases, leading to more than 700,000 deaths per year, according to the World Health Organization. But not every part of the world is equally vulnerable. In cooler regions, vector-borne infections are often a minor public health concern, but in countries like Brazil, 'it's at the top,' said Tatiane Moraes de Sousa, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Rio de Janeiro. 'Oropouche before 2024 was concentrated just in the Amazon. Last year, we saw the spreading of Oropuche in almost all Brazilian states.' That gets to the first obstacle in tracking Oropouche: Which animals are the reservoirs for the virus and where are they? So far, researchers have detected the virus in animals including sloths, capuchin monkeys, marmosets, domestic birds, and rodents. These organisms form what's known as the sylvatic, or forest, cycle of the virus. How the virus jumps between all these animals and which ones are most concerning for people is not known. Additionally, it may be possible that other insects may be able to carry the Oropouche virus, but it's not clear whether they can spread it to humans. The pattern that does emerge is that when people spend more time inside and around the fringes of tropical rainforests, where the animals that harbor the virus and the insects that spread them reside, they're more likely to get infected. With deforestation and development, more people are moving into areas where the disease naturally spreads. 'This is a classical example of how human behavior can lead to the emergence of a pathogen,' said Natasha Tilston, who studies Oropouche virus at the Indiana University School of Medicine. An aerial view of a logging yard in the Amazon rainforest. Tarcisio Schnaider via Getty Images People can travel great distances, and as people move back and forth from the wilderness to cities, they can unwittingly carry viruses like Oropouche. If enough of them gather in cities where vectors are present, they can trigger an urban epidemic cycle as the virus travels from person to midge to person. This was likely the pattern in the 2023–24 outbreak in major cities in South America. It's also true that more health workers were on guard for Oropouche and thus identified more infections. 'The outbreak is probably a combination of one, there are more cases, and two, we're also looking for a lot more than we did before,' Tilston said, noting that some past outbreaks of dengue may have actually been Oropouche as well. What set off the outbreak? One factor is that the virus likely evolved. Viruses mutate all the time, and most mutations are either inconsequential or detrimental to the virus, slowing or stopping its reproduction. But occasionally, a change can confer an advantage or make the pathogen more destructive. The Oropouche virus has a genome structure that makes it even more prone to a type of mutation called reassortment. 'Reassortment is when you have two similar viruses infect the same cell and they mix genomes,' explained University of Kentucky's de Souza. 'People previously infected by the old virus are now susceptible to new infection. This could help explain why the Amazon region, where this has been circulated for a long time, saw this emerge, because people were probably reinfected.' The strain behind the outbreak appears to reproduce faster and cause more severe illness than prior varieties as well. Part of the reason this outbreak racked up so many infected people is that health officials were starting to deploy the tools to identify on a wider scale. Particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, more health departments across the region built up their tools to detect viruses. But researchers still aren't sure exactly what spurred the virus to spread so suddenly across so many countries. Travel restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic started relaxing in 2023 and made it easier for people to move back and forth from the rural areas where the virus is endemic to the cities where it became established. The 2023 to 2024 outbreak also coincided with a powerful El Niño event that brought gargantuan amounts of rain and triggered unprecedented flooding across many parts of South America. These were also years that set new temperature records. Higher temperatures can speed up the reproduction of the virus inside midges. But scientists aren't exactly sure how this heat and water affected the vectors, though Brazil has seen outbreaks of other infectious diseases in the aftermath of floods. 'El Niño and other climate phenomena have been associated with the change of the patterns of many different vector-borne diseases,' de Souza said. 'For Oropouche specifically, we don't have the answers yet, but the likelihood of impact is very high.' On top of all this, there aren't any specific ways to keep an outbreak in check once it ignites. There are no vaccines or treatments for Oropouche fever yet. So when all the factors align to spread the disease, there isn't much people can do to target the disease, and when it reaches a new area, there aren't as many people with immunity and few health workers who know what they're dealing with. A health worker fumigates against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, a vector of the dengue, zika and Chikungunya viruses in Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 2024, as the country faced a substantial increase in dengue fever cases. The mosquito species has also been identified as a potential spreader of Oropouche virus, though plays a minor role compared to the biting midge. Douglas Magno, AFP via Getty Images How the US is preparing for diseases like the Oropouche virus Fortunately, the Oropouche outbreak has died down, but a variety of infections are gaining a toehold in new places as infected people travel and as vectors move into new habitats, and the US is increasingly vulnerable. According to the CDC, the number of vector-borne disease cases per year has doubled in the US since 2001. Last year, the US saw transmission of mosquito-borne diseases like Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus. Malaria, a disease once eradicated across the country, saw the first local infections in 20 years in 2023 in Florida and Texas. Vectors like the Asian tiger mosquito are spreading further north as the climate changes and expands favorable conditions for its survival. With travelers moving back and forth from regions where diseases are endemic, many will unwittingly bring back dangerous souvenirs, whether a stowaway insect in their luggage or an infection in their blood. And with midges, mosquitoes, and ticks spreading to new regions, dangerous pathogens are extending their reach. There are ways to slow the spread of these diseases, however, and the US has managed to do so before. The US famously launched a successful campaign to eradicate malaria within its borders. The first step is to simply acknowledge the threat. As Oropouche showed, there may be diseases lurking closer than we realized that we simply haven't bothered to look for. It's fairly simple to do things like dump standing water where insects can breed or spray insecticides on midge breeding grounds. But some places are getting creative, working to build up habitats for fish, bats, birds, and dragonflies that are natural predators of mosquitoes and midges to limit their spread. Limiting the destruction and development in wilderness areas can reduce the likelihood of diseases spilling over from animals into humans. Some regions are looking at even more drastic ways to stymie vectors. One measure that's gaining traction is deploying sterile male mosquitoes. When they mate, they produce eggs that won't hatch, thus reducing the population of the insect. Brazil recently inaugurated a factory that breeds mosquitoes to carry a bacterium known as Wolbachia that prevents the mosquitoes from reproducing easily, slowing the viruses that cause dengue, Zika, and chikungunya, a disease that can cause fever and joint pain, now established in the Americas. Hawaii is using these mosquitoes to arrest the spread of avian malaria. Vaccines and treatments are critical tools for addressing the diseases directly. Many pathogens can be controlled with these measures, but because they more commonly spread in poorer countries, there is less investment in containing them. Many vector-borne diseases like Oropouche are considered 'neglected,' and so when they do spread beyond their typical range, there isn't much available to help those who get sick. But the growing burden of these diseases demands a new generation of tools that can target multiple threats. 'We are seeing so many outbreaks that we need broad vaccines,' said Fiocruz's Sousa. Additionally, vector-borne diseases aren't each waiting for their turns. Countries can have multiple outbreaks at the same time on top of all the other health concerns that emerge during severe weather like extreme heat or the healthcare disruptions in the wake of a disaster like a major storm. 'We are seeing cumulative threats because we are seeing not just one vector-borne disease,' Sousa said. 'In a lot of scenarios, we are also maintaining high levels of communicable diseases.' Right now, some health departments are being proactive, keeping an eye out for sick travelers, collecting mosquitoes in the wild to see what kinds of germs they're carrying, and coordinating with researchers across the country. 'We've been having bi-weekly meetings with CDC to talk about the potential for Oropouche coming into the US and spreading,' said Bethany Bolling, zoonotic virology group manager at the Texas Department of State Health Services. 'We've seen in the past that Florida and Texas are some of the primary areas where these new viruses start to establish, so in Texas, we're trying to be aware of Oropouche and what the vectors are.' For the US, Brazil's experience with Oropouche is an important lesson that could help health officials prepare and counter the disease when it inevitably arrives.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Yahoo
Ancient temple ruins discovered in Andes pull back curtain on lost society after 1,000 years
Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient South American temple they say has helped pull back the curtain on the workings of its enigmatic Andean civilization. Known as the Tiwanaku, the society lived in modern-day Bolivia near the southern shores of Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world – before their mysterious disappearance more than 1,000 years ago. People had first started to live in the region around 10,000 years ago, according to University of California at Berkeley archaeologist Dr. Nicola Sharratt. As many as 20,000 people came to reside in the area. Skilled stoneworkers, the Tiwanaku were widely considered to be a precursor of the Inca empire and one of the earliest examples of civilization in the Andes mountains. 'Their society collapsed sometime around 1,000 CE and was a ruin by the time the Incas conquered the Andes in the 15th century,' José Capriles, an associate professor of anthropology at Penn State University, said in a statement. 'At its peak, it boasted a highly organized societal structure, leaving behind remnants of architectural monuments like pyramids, terraced temples and monoliths, most of which are distributed in sites around Lake Titicaca and, while we know Tiwanaku's control and influence extended much further, scholars debate how much actual control over distant places it had.' Capriles was the lead author of the international study detailing the findings published this week in the journal Antiquity. The temple is called 'Palaspata,' which was the native name for the area. Palaspata is located on a hill, approximately 130 miles to the south of the Tiwanaku's established historical site. The area was previously known to indigenous farmers, but had never been explored in depth by researchers. After noticing a strange plot of land with four sides, they turned to technology to learn more. They snapped and compiled satellite images of the site, and also took pictures using cameras aboard unmanned aerial vehicle flights. Then, they used the photos to construct a three-dimensional approximation of the Palaspata and its surrounding landscape. About the size of a city block, the complex includes 15 quadrangular enclosures arranged around a rectangular inner courtyard. Its composition, the authors said, suggested that it was used to perform rituals following the solar equinox: a bi-annual moment when the sun is positioned directly above the equator. But, it likely was not solely used for religious purposes. Much about the Tiwanaku civilization remains unknown, but Palaspata would have been in an advantageous trade spot, according to Capriles. Many people traded and built monuments throughout the mountains. This temple connected three main trade routes, including the highlands, a high-altitude plateau, and the Andean valleys of Cochabamba. 'Most economic and political transactions had to be mediated through divinity, because that would be a common language that would facilitate various individuals cooperating,' he explained. On the surface of the ruins of Palaspata, the scientists found fragments of 'keru' cups, which were used for drinking a traditional maize beer called 'chicha' during agricultural feasts and celebrations. The maize was cultivated in the Cochabamba valleys. The researchers had worked with the Bolivian Ministry of Cultures, Decolonization, and Depatriarchalization to export samples of the ruins, which were dated at the Penn State's Institute of Energy and the Environment Radiocarbon Dating Lab. The city is now working with state and national authorities to help properly protect and preserve the site. 'With more insight into the past of this ancient site, we get a window into how people managed cooperation, and how we can materially see evidence of political and economic control,' Capriles said. 'There's still so much to discover that we don't know about, and that could be hiding in plain sight. It just requires opening your eyes to see what's out there.'
Newsweek
25-06-2025
- Newsweek
One Fruit May Be Evolving in Reverse
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Wild tomatoes on the Galápagos Islands are rewinding millions of years of evolution, according to a new study. Scientists at the University of California, Riverside found that these tomatoes—descended from South American ancestors likely brought to the Pacific archipelago by birds—are producing a toxic molecular cocktail not seen in millions of years. Biologists described this as a rare and striking case of "reverse evolution." Adam Jozwiak, a molecular biochemist at UC Riverside and lead author of the study, told Newsweek that while "de-evolution" makes for a striking headline, what we're really seeing is evolution taking an unexpected turn, reverting to a state that existed millions of years ago. Could something similar happen in humans? Jozwiak said in theory, yes. A bunch of wild tomatoes growing on a plant. A bunch of wild tomatoes growing on a plant. Irina Khabarova "Humans, like all organisms, are subject to evolutionary forces," Jozwiak explained. "If environmental conditions shifted dramatically over long timescales, it's possible that traits from our distant past could re-emerge, but whether that ever happens is highly uncertain. It's speculative and would take millions of years, if at all." The key players in this evolutionary reversal are alkaloids—chemicals that serve as built-in deterrents against pests. Most cultivated tomatoes produce one type of alkaloid structure, but these Galápagos tomatoes have shifted toward an older chemical form—an evolutionary echo from their distant past and similar to compounds found in eggplant. Researchers pinpointed a single enzyme, known as GAME8, that plays a central role in forming these chemicals. Normally, GAME8 adds a chemical group in a specific three-dimensional shape ('right-handed' or 'left-handed'). Mutations in GAME8 among western island tomatoes altered just a few building blocks (amino acids), flipping the shape back to the ancestral form. The research team confirmed this by inserting the modified enzyme into tobacco plants, which then produced the ancient-style alkaloid. The chemical shift is not random. Eastern islands, which are older and more ecologically diverse, host tomatoes making modern alkaloids. In contrast, the harsher environments on younger, western islands seem to favor the ancestral, eggplant-like chemicals. Researchers believe the older alkaloids may offer better defense under these tougher conditions. Jozwiak told Newsweek that the tomato species studied were wild relatives located in the Galápagos and not included in the human diet, which means there are no direct health implications for humans. "If similar changes occurred in cultivated tomatoes, it might affect how these toxins interact with our digestive system or gut microbiome, but that's purely hypothetical," he said. "For now, this discovery is important for what it tells us about evolution, not for any immediate impact on human health." Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about evolution? Let us know via science@ Reference Jozwiak, A., Almaria, M., Cai, J., Panda, S., Price, H., Vunsh, R., Pliner, M., Meir, S., Rogachev, I., & Aharoni, A. (2025). Enzymatic twists evolved stereo-divergent alkaloids in the Solanaceae family. Nature Communications, 16(1), 5341.
