Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego report a rare, nonviolent transfer of reproductive power in a captive naked mole rat colony. The 'Amigos' colony, established in 2019 and led by queen Teré, experienced reproductive disruption after overcrowding and a 2022 lab relocation. Teré stopped reproducing for about a year; instead of the species’ characteristic violent queen wars, two of her daughters began breeding sequentially and one, named Arwen, was the sole birthing queen by late 2025 while Teré remained in a protective, nonbreeding role. The study, published April 15 in Science Advances and reported by outlets including NPR and Live Science, contrasts with ongoing lethal fights in other captive colonies such as at the Smithsonian National Zoo. Authors say peaceful succession reduces the costs of aggression — injuries and loss of workers — and reveals previously underappreciated reproductive flexibility in this eusocial mammal, which is widely studied for its longevity and disease resistance.

The annual Lyrid meteor shower, produced by debris from Comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher), reached its 2026 peak overnight April 21–22, with activity visible across much of the globe. The shower is active roughly April 16–25; under dark, clear skies observers can expect roughly 10–20 meteors per hour near peak, though short-lived surges or historic outbursts can briefly boost rates to as many as 100 per hour. This year’s viewing was aided by a thin waxing crescent moon that set early, reducing skyglow in many locations. Best viewing is during the predawn hours when the constellation Lyra (near the star Vega) is highest; experts advise finding a dark site, allowing 20–30 minutes for eye adaptation, lying back to scan a wide field and avoiding binoculars or telescopes. For those clouded out or in urban areas, multiple high-quality livestreams (from locations such as Mauna Kea, Atacama, Embleton and Mount Fuji) and real‑time tools like the Global Meteor Network provided remote viewing and fireball alerts. Comet Thatcher’s 415-year orbit means the comet itself won’t return until centuries from now, while its dust continues to produce this reliable spring spectacle.

Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory report that fungal spores recovered from spacecraft assembly cleanrooms can survive a suite of simulated space and Martian conditions, raising fresh concerns about forward contamination. In experiments reported in Applied and Environmental Microbiology (April 2026), scientists collected 27 fungal strains from facilities used in the Mars 2020 program and exposed their asexual spores (conidia) to intense ultraviolet radiation, months-long ionizing radiation doses, low pressure, Mars-like regolith, and extreme cold. Most strains survived UV exposure; one species, Aspergillus calidoustus, withstood UV, prolonged ionizing radiation and low-pressure, low-temperature conditions that mimic a mission to Mars. Only prolonged exposure to a combination of very high radiation and extreme cold reliably killed it. The team, led by Kasthuri Venkateswaran of JPL, says the findings do not prove Mars contamination will occur but highlight fungi as an underappreciated gap in planetary protection protocols. The results also note potential human-health implications for astronaut safety and call for updated sterilisation and monitoring standards for future robotic and crewed missions.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected the most diverse suite of organic molecules yet identified on Mars, researchers reported April 21 in Nature Communications. A rock nicknamed “Mary Anning 3,” drilled in 2020 from clay‑rich sandstones in Glen Torridon on Mount Sharp (Gale Crater), yielded 21 carbon‑containing molecules; seven had not previously been seen on Mars. Among the novel detections are a nitrogen heterocycle — a ringed molecule considered a chemical precursor to RNA/DNA — and benzothiophene, a sulfur‑bearing compound found in meteorites. The results come from the first off‑Earth use of tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) thermochemolysis in the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, a “wet chemistry” test that breaks macromolecular carbon into analyzable fragments. Team lead Amy Williams and colleagues verified aspects of the technique using a Murchison meteorite sample. Scientists emphasise the findings do not prove past life: the organics could be native abiotic products or delivered by meteorites. The discovery shows complex organics can survive ~3.5 billion years in Martian clays and will inform future missions and sample‑return priorities.

NASA on April 21–22 unveiled and declared complete the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The 2.4‑metre mirror observatory, named for NASA’s first chief astronomer, is a wide-field visible-to-near‑infrared survey telescope built at a cost of more than $4 billion and slated for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy as early as September 2026. Roman’s Wide Field Instrument (a 300‑megapixel imager with a slitless spectrometer) will capture sky patches about 100 times larger than Hubble’s and is optimized for fast, panoramic surveys — hunting exoplanets via microlensing, thousands of supernovae, billions of galaxies and mapping dark matter and dark energy. NASA and partners say the mission will generate terabytes of data daily (briefings have cited figures such as 11 TB/day and hundreds of terabytes per year), complementing JWST, Euclid and the Vera Rubin Observatory and enabling rapid follow-up science.