Roger Penrose’s idea is one of the most fascinating alternatives to the picture of the Big Bang as an absolute beginning.

His theory, called Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC), proposes that our universe is just one “aeon” in an endless sequence. Each aeon begins with something resembling a Big Bang, expands for an unimaginably long time, and eventually becomes the starting condition for another universe.

The strange part is how Penrose connects the two. In the extremely distant future, stars would disappear, matter would decay or become irrelevant, and black holes would eventually evaporate through Hawking radiation. The universe would become enormously expanded, cold and dominated by effectively massless particles such as photons.

For massless particles, Penrose argues, absolute scales of distance and time lose physical meaning. Using a mathematical transformation called conformal rescaling, the infinitely expanded future of one aeon can be mapped onto the extremely compressed beginning of the next.

So in CCC, the Big Bang isn’t quite an explosion emerging from nothing. It is a transition between two cosmic eras: the infinitely distant future of one universe mathematically becoming the beginning of another.

Penrose and collaborators have even argued that traces of previous aeons might survive in the cosmic microwave background, including proposed features called Hawking points. Those claims remain controversial, however, and other researchers have argued that the apparent patterns are consistent with statistical fluctuations.

CCC is therefore not established cosmology. The standard cosmological model still describes our observable universe extremely well, and we currently have no confirmed evidence that anything existed before the Big Bang.

But Penrose’s theory raises an extraordinary possibility: perhaps asking what happened “before” the Big Bang isn’t meaningless. Perhaps our universe has a history older than its own beginning.

8,000-year-old Danish bog oak – used instead of vanilla.
One of those ideas that sounds completely wrong until you taste it.
Would you try it?

By @claushenriksens_univers

#vanilla #oak #preserved #icecream #quenelle

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A spoonful of tomato paste a day could reshape how your brain works, boosting memory and focus, a groundbreaking new study reveals.

Could a common pantry staple be the secret to sharpening your mind? A randomized clinical trial has revealed that eating just 35 grams of concentrated tomato paste—roughly two tablespoons—daily for three months can significantly alter brain network connectivity. The study, which followed 42 healthy middle-aged adults, found that this simple dietary change led to measurable improvements in selective attention, processing speed, and associative memory. Researchers attribute these cognitive boosts to lycopene, the powerful antioxidant that gives tomatoes their bright red color and possesses the unique ability to cross the blood-brain barrier to reduce neuroinflammation.

Beyond behavioral improvements, the team used functional MRI scans to peer inside the participants’ brains, discovering tangible changes in how major neural networks communicate with each other during rest. The imaging revealed reduced connectivity in frontoparietal and auditory networks, a pattern the scientists suggest may indicate a more efficient, flexible, and streamlined brain. Additionally, participants showed an upward trend in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a vital protein associated with cognitive health and neuronal growth. While further, larger-scale research is needed to fully understand these long-term effects, the findings present an exciting, accessible case for incorporating more tomato products into our daily diets.

source: López-Solís, R., et al. (2026). Tomato Intake Improves Cognitive Performance and Modulates Functional Brain Networks in Healthy Adults: A Randomized Crossover Clinical Trial. Antioxidants.

Cancer deaths linked to alcohol consumption have more than doubled in the U.S.

Scientists warn that even light drinking carries severe health risks.

A landmark study published in ‘The Lancet Regional Health – Americas’ reveals a stark rise in alcohol-attributable cancer deaths, which soared from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023.

Researchers from the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine found that while overall cancer mortality has declined, the proportion of cancer deaths linked to alcohol has dramatically increased.

The study highlights that the deadly impact of alcohol is not limited to liver disease; it plays a critical role in breast, colorectal, esophageal, and head and neck cancers. Alarmingly, older men and adults over 55 experienced the heaviest burden, though the rise was observed across nearly all demographic groups.

Despite the scientific consensus classifying alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen alongside tobacco and asbestos, public awareness of this connection remains critically low. Health experts warn that there is no truly ‘safe’ level of consumption, as even one standard drink per day can elevate cancer risks. To combat this rising public health crisis, scientists and advocates are calling for stronger preventative strategies, including clearer cancer warning labels on alcoholic beverages, public education campaigns, and proactive screening by healthcare providers.

source: Jani, C., et al. (2026). Alcohol-attributable cancer mortality trends in the United States, 1990–2023. The Lancet Regional Health – Americas.

America just brought fiber-optic cable performance directly onto ordinary silicon computer chips. Caltech scientists have created ultra-low-loss optical pathways on silicon chips that approach the efficiency of fiber optics and dramatically outperform existing technology at visible wavelengths, a breakthrough that could unlock more powerful lasers and faster optical computing directly integrated onto standard chip manufacturing processes.

Optical computing, which uses light instead of electricity to process information, promises significant speed and efficiency advantages over conventional electronic computing, but has historically struggled to achieve fiber-optic-level performance when miniaturized onto standard silicon chips. Achieving this level of optical efficiency directly on silicon removes a major barrier that’s kept optical computing largely confined to specialized, bulky laboratory equipment rather than practical chip-scale devices.

This breakthrough could meaningfully accelerate the development of faster, more energy-efficient computing hardware built around light-based rather than purely electronic signal processing.
Source: ScienceDaily, Caltech, August 2026

Scientists have misjudged how psychedelics affect the brain.

For decades, neuroscientists assumed that all classic psychedelics operated through the same cellular mechanisms. Because compounds like LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline all bind to the same serotonin receptor, researchers assumed findings from one could be easily extrapolated to the rest.

However, a groundbreaking study from Northeastern University has upended this long-held assumption. Led by doctoral student Noah Cavallaro and Professor Craig Ferris, researchers mapped the effects of mescaline on awake brains for the first time.

They discovered that mescaline behaves entirely differently from other psychedelics, turning down activity in the cerebellum—the brain’s sensory ‘firewall’—while drastically boosting its communication with memory and sensory hubs. This essentially floods the brain with unfiltered sensory data, showing that mescaline alters consciousness in a highly distinct manner.

This revelation has massive implications for the future of psychiatric treatment and drug development. By demonstrating that the oldest known ceremonial psychedelic defies the standard neurobiological model, the study highlights how much scientists have yet to learn about altered states of consciousness. It proves that psychedelics cannot be treated as a monolith in clinical settings; instead, each compound may target unique neural circuits. Gaining a precise understanding of these distinct pathways could pave the way for highly tailored therapies for conditions like depression, PTSD, and schizophrenia, where sensory filtering is often compromised. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, the future of psychedelic medicine lies in harnessing the distinct neural signatures of each compound.

source: Cavallaro, N., Rai, P., Akins, D., & Ferris, C. F. (2026). Mescaline Alters Cerebellar Function, Global Connectivity, and Frequency-Selective Acoustic Gating: A BOLD fMRI Study in Awake Rats. Neuroscience Bulletin.