Parasitic weeds are ruthless freeloaders, stealing nutrients from crops and devastating harvests. But what if farmers could trick these invaders into self-destructing? Scientists at UC Riverside think they’ve found a way.

A terrifying glimpse at one potential fate of our Milky Way galaxy has come to light thanks to the discovery of a cosmic anomaly that challenges our understanding of the universe. An international team of astronomers led by CHRIST University, Bangalore, found that a massive spiral galaxy almost one billion light-years away from Earth harbours a supermassive black hole billions of times the Sun’s mass which is powering colossal radio jets stretching six million light-years across. That is one of the largest known for any spiral galaxy and upends conventional wisdom of galaxy evolution, because such powerful jets are almost exclusively found in elliptical galaxies, not spirals. It also means the Milky Way could potentially create similar energetic jets in the future – with the cosmic rays, gamma rays and X-rays they produce wreaking havoc in our solar system because of increased radiation and the potential to cause a mass extinction on Earth.