Hydrocarbon lake and methane rain clouds on Titan
Jenny McElligott/eMITS

NASA research has shown that cell-like compartments called vesicles could form naturally in the lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan.

Titan is the only world apart from Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface. However, Titan’s lakes and seas are not filled with water. Instead, they contain liquid hydrocarbons like ethane and methane.

On Earth, liquid water is thought to have been essential for the origin of life as we know it. Many astrobiologists have wondered whether Titan’s liquids could also provide an environment for the formation of the molecules required for life – either as we know it or perhaps as we don’t know it – to take hold there.

New NASA research, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology, outlines a process by which stable vesicles might form on Titan, based on our current knowledge of the moon’s atmosphere and chemistry. The formation of such compartments is an important step in making the precursors of living cells (or protocells).

The process involves molecules called amphiphiles, which can self-organize into vesicles under the right conditions. On Earth, these polar molecules have two parts, a hydrophobic (water-fearing) end and a hydrophilic (water-loving) end. When they are in water, groups of these molecules can bunch together and form ball-like spheres, like soap bubbles, where the hydrophilic part of the molecule faces outward to interact with the water, thereby ‘protecting’ the hydrophobic part on the inside of the sphere. Under the right conditions, two layers can form creating a cell-like ball with a bilayer membrane that encapsulates a pocket of water on the inside.

When considering vesicle formation on Titan, however, the researchers had to take into account an environment vastly different from the early Earth.

Uncovering Conditions on Titan

Huygens captured this aerial view of Titan from an altitude of 33,000 feet.
ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the second largest in our solar system. Titan is also the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere.

The hazy, golden atmosphere of Titan kept the moon shrouded in mystery for much of human history. However, when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, our views of Titan changed forever.

Thanks to Cassini, we now know Titan has a complex meteorological cycle that actively influences the surface today. Most of Titan’s atmosphere is nitrogen, but there is also a significant amount of methane (CH₄). This methane forms clouds and rain, which falls to the surface to cause erosion and river channels, filling up the lakes and seas. This liquid then evaporates in sunlight to form clouds once again.

This atmospheric activity also allows for complex chemistry to happen. Energy from the Sun breaks apart molecules like methane, and the pieces then reform into complex organic molecules. Many astrobiologists believe that this chemistry could teach us how the molecules necessary for the origin of life formed and evolved on the early Earth.

Building Vesicles on Titan

The new study considered how vesicles might form in the freezing conditions of Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes and seas by focusing on sea-spray droplets, thrown upwards by splashing raindrops. On Titan, both spray droplets and the sea surface could be coated in layers of amphiphiles. If a droplet then lands on the surface of a pond, the two layers of amphiphiles meet to form a double-layered (or bilayer) vesicle, enclosing the original droplet. Over time, many of these vesicles would be dispersed throughout the pond and would interact and compete in an evolutionary process that could lead to primitive protocells.

If the proposed pathway is happening, it would increase our understanding of the conditions in which life might be able to form.

“The existence of any vesicles on Titan would demonstrate an increase in order and complexity, which are conditions necessary for the origin of life,” explains Conor Nixon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We’re excited about these new ideas because they can open up new directions in Titan research and may change how we search for life on Titan in the future.”

NASA’s first mission to Titan is the upcoming Dragonfly rotorcraft, which will explore the surface of the Saturnian moon. While Titan’s lakes and seas are not a destination for Dragonfly (and the mission won’t carry the light-scattering instrument required to detect such vesicles), the mission will fly from location to location to study the moon’s surface composition, make atmospheric and geophysical measurements, and characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment.

News Media Contacts

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov

"The truth of the matter is that Israeli leaders have been pushing genocidal advocacy for many years. The genocidal thinking has always been a part of the Zionist project in one way or another, fueled by its settler-colonial logic of elimination. But these genocidal tendencies have often had to be balanced with a semblance of democracy, just like in the case of its apartheid.

But now, Israel seems to have unleashed itself from such constraints to a much greater degree. It appears that Israel no longer sees the need to put on the perfume of democracy."

mondoweiss.net/2025/07/poll-ov…

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Zionism #Genocide #HumanRights

Poll: Overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis share genocidal belief there are ‘no innocent people in

A Hebrew University poll shows an overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis agree with the genocidal idea that there are “no innocents in Gaza.”

^{Adam Horowitz (Mondoweiss)}

“Δε θα στείλουνε τους μετανάστες δίπλα στους καταυλισμούς των σεισμοπαθών, ούτε στα πολεμικά μας αεροδρόμιο, ούτε & στις παιδικές χαρές μας”, το όχι των φασιστών δημάρχων στην δημιουργία κλειστής φυλακής . & καταρχήν, τους ρώτησε κανείς, εάν θέλουν να μείνουν στο Ελλαδιστάν?

(& δεν περιμέναμε & κάτι το παραπάνω όταν λένε για “Καταυλισμούς των σεισμοπαθών”. Φιάσκο)

Με βάση τα αποτελέσματα της μελέτης η έκταση όλων των γηπέδων εγκατάστασης των 11 αιολικών σταθμών και των συνοδών έργων οδοποιίας είναι σχεδόν εξ ολοκλήρου εντός του δικτύου Natura 2000 και συγκεκριμένα κατά 97% εντός της περιοχής Ζώνης Ειδικής Προστασίας με την επωνυμία «Ορη Κεντρικής Εύβοιας, παράκτια ζώνη και νησίδες».

#ΜητσοτάκηΚάθαρμα #ΝΔΚαθάρματα #ΑΠΕ

efsyn.gr/periballon/478913_mel…

Berlin, Germany : A Car of the Stölting Company Set on Fire abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/203…

abolitionmedia

2025-07-14 02:46:49

Berlin, Germany : A Car of the Stölting Company Set on Fire

Solidarity with Maja and all prisoners – A car of the Stölting company set on fire

During the night of 12 to 13 June, a car belonging to the Stölting company went up in flames.

The Stölting group is a services company and presents itself, among other things, as an external alternative for management, food, medical treatment, care and support for jails; it is proposing taking over certain areas, or even the management of prison establishments as a whole.

In the past, the Stölting group has also been associated with anti-union practices – workers found themselves offered money to leave the union.

With all the different roles they play in prison, they are supporting a system based on the punishment of persons who do not integrate into the logic of capitalist exploitation, and try to break them through isolation.

Prisons are one of the many repressive tools of the State to prevent actions of resistance and intimidate people who use counter-violence against them.

At the present time, in Germany, there are more compas in jail than there have been over the past thirty years. The State is acting very firmly against all those who are putting its monopoly of violence in question.

The antifascist movement is presently at the centre of investigations, but anarchists M. and N., of Munich, as well as Daniela Klette [one-time militant of the RAF, arrested in February 2024 and presently on trial; NdAtt.] are also imprisoned on remand.

In Greece, anarchists Marianna, Dimitra, Dimitris and Nikos are on remand following the explosion that took place on October 31 2024 in an apartment in Athens, and cost anarchist combatant Kyriakos Xymitiris his life.

They are being accused of being members of a terrorist organisation, as is often the case, the simple fact of knowing each other is punished, aimed at satisfying the appetites of the authorities in charge of the inquest, always seeking more suspects.

In Hungary, Maja has started a hunger strike on June 5th 2025 [see here; NdAtt.], protest against solitary confinement and the prison conditions and to be assigned to house arrest or be sent back to Germany.

For prisoners hunger strike is often the last means they have to resist. They put their health and also their life at risk and use their body as a last weapon against the repressive system.

All those in prison who resist and fight back deserve our solidarity – beating up nazis, blowing up prisons, burning cops cars are all parts of a practice of resistance which can only continue to live thanks to support in the street and the defence of our ideas with all means.

Against the prison society – Freedom for all prisoners !

——–

via: attaque.
Translated by Act for freedom now!

abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=…

#berlin #DirectAction #europe #germany #Maja

Berlin, Germany : A car of the Stölting company set on fire | Act for freedom now!

^{actforfree.noblogs.org}

Disobedience is a demand for change

#StarWars #TheCloneWars

Strategies for Fast Lexers

Link: xnacly.me/posts/2025/fast-lexe…
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4…

US ice cream makers say they'll stop using artificial dyes by 2028
https://apnews.com/article/ice-cream-synthetic-dyes-e334d75f87238e57826bcb65f098ebe2?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Business and Finance @business-and-finance-AssociatedPress

Supreme Court allows Trump to lay off nearly 1,400 Education Department employees
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-education-layoffs-9370415531185092341b16a6bfea9344?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Politics @politics-AssociatedPress

MAGA faithful are angry about the Epstein case. Here's what to know
https://apnews.com/article/epstein-trump-bondi-904822e788fa02fd6bd5c8181d0c9c08?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Politics @politics-AssociatedPress

Senate Democrats say Trump's policies are hurting America’s ability to compete with China
https://apnews.com/article/china-trump-usaid-influence-visa-48bb3a3cdb11f8f9622addb3954ff3b9?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Asia @asia-AssociatedPress

The Guardian Sues Trump Administration for Withholding ICE Immigration Enforcement Data

"The news organization sought to uncover whether ICE’s enforcement efforts focused primarily on illegal immigrants with criminal records or if broader populations were being targeted.

Although ICE initially acknowledged the request and asked for more time, the agency ceased responding, prompting The Guardian and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to file a lawsuit..."

resistthemainstream.com/media-…

The Guardian Sues Trump Administration for Withholding ICE Immigration Enforcement Data

This is huge.

^{Gloriel Howard (Resist the Mainstream)}

Cuomo staying in NYC mayor’s race as independent after losing Democratic primary to Mamdani
https://apnews.com/article/andrew-cuomo-zohran-mamdani-new-york-mayor-b51061b3b88ff52b44ffebbbf952554d?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Politics @politics-AssociatedPress

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Acta Populi

2020-09-05 07:11:19

Follow us on social

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An earthquake with a preliminary 6.2 magnitude shakes Panama, with no immediate reports of damage
https://apnews.com/article/panama-earthquake-chiriqui-8a01c90862d7b9ccfbb65ab24014e53f?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into International News @international-news-AssociatedPress

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"Script meetings were also dominated by references to what “Collier” might say – referring to David Collier, a social media activist who had discovered the omissions of the previous film. In one editorial meeting..a senior BBC reporter told us we should not use certain information as this would not be acceptable to Camera, a pro-Israel media monitoring organisation"

David Collier is a zionist thug who should be nowhere near BBC policy decisions.

#Gaza #BBC #Doctors
observer.co.uk/news/national/a…

BBC bosses pulled our film on Israel attacking Gaza’s medics. Here’s why

The producers' story of how the corporation repeatedly delayed and ultimately shelved their damning documentary

^{Ben de Pear & Ramita Navai (The Observer)}

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#nsfw #barelife #nude #naked #nudist #naturist #nudism #naturism #getnaked #staynaked #chillnaked #fkk #normalisenudity #nudistworld #naturistworld #casualnudity #normalstuffnaked #nudefreedom #nudistfreedom #bodyfreedom #nudistlifestyle #clothesfree #nakedactivities #nakedisnormal #normalisingnaturism #newd #nekked #nakey #nuditea

Jofra Archer's triumphant return helps England defeat India at Lord's
https://apnews.com/article/jofra-archer-england-india-9b68fb623c4f50c5cf7a5bbae9b3715c?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Asia @asia-AssociatedPress