2026-05-22T20:07:51Z https://www.sapcraa.com/oai

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1528 2025-06-29 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Desi baryon acoustic oscillation measurements and the evolving dark energy hypothesis — the end of the cosmological constant? Suresh Yadav The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) released the cosmological results of its first three years of operation in two waves — DR1 in April 2024 and DR2 in March 2025 — and reported, in combination with cosmic microwave background data from Planck and with Type Ia supernova compilations from Pantheon+, Union3, and the Dark Energy Survey Year 5 sample, a preference for an evolving dark energy equation of state over the cosmological constant of ΛCDM at significance levels reaching 4.2σ. The result, if it survives further scrutiny, would constitute the most consequential shift in observational cosmology since the original discovery of cosmic acceleration. It would also, if it does not survive, illustrate the pathological sensitivity of multi-probe model comparison to the choice of supernova compilation, the prior on neutrino mass, and the parametrisation of the dark energy equation of state. In this article I review the empirical case that DESI has built for evolving dark energy, the structure of the ChevallierPolarski-Linder w0wa parametrisation through which the case is made, the consistency of the result across the major independent datasets, and the principal counter-arguments — that the apparent evolution is driven by a specific subset of DESI tracers, that it is amplified by the choice of supernova compilation, or that it is an artefact of the CPL parametrisation rather than a feature of the underlying cosmology. I propose, as the original contribution of this article, the MultiProbe Dark Energy Evolution Convergence Index (MPDECI), a single normalised metric — bounded on [0,1] — that quantifies the coherence of the preferred (w0, wa) regions across independent dataset combinations. Applied to the published DESI DR1 and DR2 datasets in combination with CMB and three supernova compilations, MPDECI returns a value of approximately 0.61, which I interpret as indicating moderate but not decisive convergent evidence for evolving dark energy. I argue that the question of whether ΛCDM is being supplanted will be resolved not by additional precision on any single probe but by the convergence (or divergence) of MPDECI as Euclid, the Vera Rubin Observatory LSST, and DESI Years 4-5 enter the dataset over the next three years. The argument draws on 25 verified references published between 2019 and 2025, mostly from SCOPUS-indexed venues. SAPCRAA 2025-06-29 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2025-1-5 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1528 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en dark energy cosmological constant baryon acoustic oscillations DESI w0wa parametrisation Hubble tension ΛCDM evolving equation of state multi-probe convergence CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1527 2025-06-29 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Biosignatures in the clouds of Venus: phosphine, ammonia, and methodological controversy — a review of the state of the debate before the davinci and rocket lab missions Christopher Davis The September 2020 announcement by Greaves and colleagues of a tentative detection of phosphine (PH3) at ≈20 ppb in the cloud deck of Venus reopened, with unusual force, the question of whether the most chemically reduced terrestrial analogue of a planetary atmosphere can be reconciled with abiotic explanations. Within six months, four independent reanalyses had downgraded the claimed signal, an upper limit from infrared spectroscopy at 5 ppb had been published, and a re-examination of legacy Pioneer Venus mass-spectrometer data had reopened the case from a completely different empirical direction. In 2021 and 2022 the dispute spread to ammonia (NH3), to the photochemistry of phosphorus-bearing species in concentrated sulfuric acid clouds, and to the question of whether mantle-plume volcanism could deliver phosphides in sufficient quantity to mimic a biological signal. Two near-term missions — NASA's DAVINCI probe (launch 2029, descent 2031) and the MIT-Rocket Lab Venus Life Finder (launch no earlier than 2026) — will return in-situ measurements with the explicit objective of constraining the cloud-level biosignature question. The pre-mission moment is therefore methodologically interesting in its own right: it is the last point at which the inferential machinery used to evaluate remote spectroscopic biosignature claims can be reformed in light of what the Venus phosphine episode revealed about its weaknesses. In this article I review the published evidence for and against the phosphine claim, the parallel and less mature ammonia claim, and the photochemical and volcanic abiotic counter-hypotheses, and I propose the Cross-Instrumental Discrepancy Index (CIDI) as a single normalised metric that captures the degree to which independent measurements of the same atmospheric mixing ratio converge or diverge. CIDI, applied to the post-2020 Venus PH3 dataset, returns a value of approximately 0.83, well above the threshold I propose for treating a biosignature claim as observationally robust. I integrate CIDI into a fivetier Pre-Mission Evidentiary Threshold Matrix (PETM) that specifies what DAVINCI and Venus Life Finder must achieve to move the cloud-biosignature question across the next evidentiary boundary. The argument draws on 26 verified references published between 2017 and June 2025, predominantly from SCOPUS-indexed journals. SAPCRAA 2025-06-29 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2025-1-4 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1527 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en Venus phosphine ammonia biosignature cloud habitability DAVINCI Venus Life Finder atmospheric chemistry methodological controversy CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1526 2025-06-29 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Mechanobiophysics of the nuclear envelope: how mechanical forces redirect gene expression through the linc complex Ana Bokuchava The nuclear envelope is no longer regarded as a passive partition between cytoplasm and chromatin. A decade of mechanobiological work has reframed it as an active mechanosignalling hub in which the linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) complex — composed of SUN-domain proteins and KASH-domain nesprins — physically transmits cytoskeletal forces across both nuclear membranes to the lamina, the chromatin, and ultimately to transcriptional programs. Despite a rapidly growing body of evidence, the field has largely treated LINC as a quasi-uniform conduit and has paid less attention to its compositional plasticity across cell types, developmental stages, and microenvironmental contexts. In this article, I propose and elaborate the LINC Compositional Mechanocoding Hypothesis (LCMH), which holds that distinct SUN1:SUN2 stoichiometries, nesprin isoform compositions and lamin A:B ratios jointly encode the qualitative features of an incoming mechanical stimulus — frequency, magnitude, directionality and duration — into qualitatively distinct chromatin reorganisation patterns and downstream transcriptional outcomes. I formalise this hypothesis through a tripartite LINC Mechanocoding Index (LMI), defined as the normalised product of three measurable component ratios, and I show, on the basis of currently available datasets, that LMI co-varies with both the H3K9me3 partitioning between lamina-associated domains and the nuclear interior and with cell-fate transitions in stem cells, cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells. The analysis identifies three concrete predictions of LCMH that can be tested with existing experimental platforms, and it draws methodological consequences for the design of future LINC-targeted therapeutics. SAPCRAA 2025-06-29 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2025-1-3 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1526 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1525 2025-06-29 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Thermo-mechanical optimization of aerogel heat shields for atmospheric entry of probes into titan's methane-nitrogen atmosphere Rohit Agarwal Atmospheric entry into Titan's thick methane-nitrogen atmosphere generates an aerothermodynamic environment with peak heat flux levels in the range of 0.9 to 1.3 MW/m^2 and a substantial radiative contribution from the CN violet and red band systems, which together constitute one of the most demanding heat-shield design problems among foreseen planetary missions. The advent of the Dragonfly rotorcraft mission, with a 1270 km entry interface and a two-hour descent from Mach 28 to subsonic conditions, has refocused attention on thermal protection system (TPS) architectures that combine low areal density, sustained mechanical robustness through long heating pulses, and tolerance of the post-separation backshell regime. This article presents a thermo-mechanical optimization framework for aerogel-based heat shields tailored to Titan entry conditions, integrating recent advances in fiber-reinforced silica aerogels, cross-linked polyimide aerogels, and hypocrystalline ceramic aerogels into a single comparative analysis. The original contribution lies in the formulation of the Titan-Calibrated ThermoMechanical Performance Index (TC-TMPI), a synthetic indicator that combines normalized thermal conductivity, compressive strength, density, and high-temperature stability evaluated against a Dragonfly-relevant reference trajectory. The framework, applied to six candidate aerogel architectures (silica-phenolic ablator, polyimide-silica composite, ceramic-fiber aerogel, hypocrystalline zircon aerogel, conformal PICA-aerogel hybrid, and dual-layer woven aerogel), generates a quantitative ranking and identifies the polyimide-silica composite and the dual-layer woven aerogel as the principal candidates for further development. The analysis also clarifies the parameter space within which aerogel-based architectures outperform legacy carbon-phenolic ablators, particularly in the moderate-flux long-duration regime characteristic of Titan rather than the short-duration high-flux regime of Earth and Mars entries. SAPCRAA 2025-06-29 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2025-1-2 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1525 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en aerogel thermal protection Titan atmospheric entry thermo-mechanical optimization Dragonfly mission polyimide aerogel silica aerogel ablator hypersonic heating CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1524 2025-06-29 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Horizontal gene transfer in extremophilic archaea exposed to simulated martian regolith chemistry: implications for panspermia hypotheses Tanja Subotić The interaction between the genetic plasticity of extremophilic archaea and the physicochemical chemistry of Martian regolith constitutes one of the central, yet unresolved, questions of contemporary astrobiology. This article examines whether and how horizontal gene transfer (HGT) processes among halophilic and thermoacidophilic archaea proceed under simulated Martian regolith conditions characterized by perchlorate salts, oxidized iron phases, low water activity and elevated ultraviolet flux, and what consequences such modulated HGT dynamics would have for the panspermia hypothesis. Drawing on a synthesis of recent spaceexposure experiments, perchlorate biology studies and archaeal genomics, the article develops an analytical framework that connects three previously disjoint literatures: archaeal HGT mechanisms, Martian regolith physicochemistry, and lithopanspermia transit modelling. The original contribution of this work consists in the proposal of a Regolith-Mediated Genetic Plasticity Index (RGPI) — a conceptual indicator linking measured HGT frequency in archaeal model systems to the chemical aggressiveness of the surrounding mineral matrix, expressed as a normalized function of perchlorate concentration, UV dose and water activity. The synthesis shows that genus-level haloarchaea retain measurable transformation competence at Marsrelevant perchlorate concentrations up to 0.4 M, while ESCRT-dependent vesicle-mediated DNA transfer in Sulfolobus persists across thermal regimes overlapping with subsurface Martian niches. These findings reconfigure panspermia debates by shifting attention from the survival of a single transferred organism to the evolutionary trajectory of consortia in which the regolith itself acts as a selective amplifier of HGT-driven adaptation. SAPCRAA 2025-06-29 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2025-1-1 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1524 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en horizontal gene transfer extremophilic archaea Martian regolith perchlorates panspermia lithopanspermia astrobiology genetic plasticity. CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1523 2024-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Linc complex mechanobiophysics and the translational landscape of nuclear mechanopathologies: a comprehensive review and the lmtri readiness framework Eka Bokuchava The linker of nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton (LINC) complex — composed of SUNdomain proteins traversing the inner nuclear membrane and KASH-domain nesprins traversing the outer nuclear membrane, together physically coupling the cytoskeleton to the nuclear lamina and chromatin — has, over the 2016-2023 window, moved from a structurally-characterised molecular assembly to a central explanatory node in a broad family of mechanopathologies. Five disease categories have, in this window, accumulated substantial mechanistic and clinical evidence linking LINC dysfunction or LINC-coupled lamin defects to human pathology: LMNA-related dilated cardiomyopathy with conduction-system involvement, Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD) arising from mutations in EMD, LMNA, SYNE1, SYNE2, SUN1, and SUN2, Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) caused by aberrant LMNA splicing producing the toxic progerin protein, mechanobiologically-mediated cancer invasion and metastasis through LINC-coupled nuclear deformation during confined migration, and an emerging set of neuronal and developmental disorders linked to nesprin and lamin defects. The companion-article original-research piece in this series introduced the LINC Compositional Mechanocoding Hypothesis (LCMH) and the corresponding LINC Mechanocoding Index (LMI) to evaluate the basic-science compositional plasticity of LINC across cell types; the present review introduces, as the complementary original contribution, the LINC-Mechanopathy Translational Readiness Index (LMTRI), a normalised composite metric — bounded on [0,1] — that integrates five translational-readiness dimensions (mechanistic clarity, cross-species animal-model validation, biomarker maturity, therapeutic-target druggability, and active clinical-pipeline activity) and returns a quantitative ranking of the five disease categories on a metric explicitly designed to support clinical-translation decisions. Applied to the five canonical disease categories, LMTRI returns the highest readiness score for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (≈0.65, reflecting the FDA-approved lonafarnib treatment and the substantial clinical-pipeline activity around base-editing approaches), intermediate scores for LMNA-related dilated cardiomyopathy (≈0.50) and Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (≈0.45), and lower scores for LINC-mediated cancer invasion (≈0.35) and emerging neuronal disorders (≈0.28). SAPCRAA 2024-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2024-1-6 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1523 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en LINC complex SUN proteins nesprins nuclear envelope lamin A/C LMNA mechanopathology dilated cardiomyopathy Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy Hutchinson-Gilford progeria translational readiness CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1522 2024-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Molecular carriers of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in mammals: a comprehensive review and the tcmsi carrier-mechanism sufficiency framework Rafael Souza Mendes Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance (TGEI) in mammals — the transmission of phenotype-relevant epigenetic information from an exposed F0 generation to unexposed F3 (maternal lineage) or F2 (paternal lineage) generations through germline mechanisms — has, in the 2016-2022 window, accumulated a substantial empirical literature spanning at least five candidate molecular carrier classes: residual DNA methylation surviving the two genome-wide reprogramming events, sperm-borne transfer-RNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) and their post-transcriptional modifications, sperm microRNAs (miRNAs), retained histone posttranslational modifications at sperm-resistant loci, and higher-order chromatin-architecture features including topologically associating domains and centromeric heterochromatin organisation. Each carrier class has accumulated its own evidentiary profile across detection robustness, reprogramming-bypass mechanism, zygote-rescue causality, cross-species evolutionary conservation, and therapeutic-translation actionability. The literature has, however, been organised predominantly around specific phenomenological claims — paternal-diet metabolic inheritance, paternal-stress behavioural inheritance, Holocaust FKBP5 trauma transmission, gestational-famine epigenetic imprints — rather than around the molecular carriers themselves. The companion article in this series introduced the Mammalian Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance Evidence Index (MTEII) to evaluate the claim-level evidentiary strength of specific TGEI cases; the present review introduces, as the complementary original contribution, the Transgenerational Carrier-Mechanism Sufficiency Index (TCMSI), a normalised composite metric — bounded on [0,1] — that integrates five carrier-mechanism dimensions (detection robustness in mammalian germline, reprogramming-bypass mechanism specificity, demonstrated zygote-rescue causality, inter-species evolutionary conservation, and therapeutictranslation actionability) and returns a quantitative ranking of the five carrier classes on a metric explicitly designed to evaluate molecular-mechanism sufficiency rather than claim-level evidentiary support. Applied to the five canonical carrier classes, TCMSI returns the highest score for sperm tsRNAs and their DNMT2-mediated modifications (≈0.62), intermediate scores for sperm miRNAs (≈0.55) and residual DNA methylation (≈0.42), and lower scores for retained histone modifications (≈0.35) and higher-order chromatin architecture (≈0.28). SAPCRAA 2024-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2024-1-5 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1522 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en transgenerational epigenetic inheritance sperm tsRNAs sperm miRNAs DNA methylation reprogramming histone modifications chromatin architecture molecular carriers mammalian germline DNMT2 evidentiary frameworks CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1521 2024-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

The human pangenome and the end of the singlereference paradigm: t2t-chm13, hprc, and the parti framework for adoption-readiness evaluation Teodor Markovski The publication of the telomere-to-telomere CHM13 sequence (Nurk et al., 2022) and the first draft Human Pangenome Reference (Liao et al., 2023) jointly mark the end of the linear single-reference paradigm that has governed human genomics for two decades. GRCh38 omits roughly 200 megabases of repetitive and acrocentric sequence and carries a documented European-ancestry bias; the new resources close most of that gap and reframe the reference itself as a structured graph over 47 phased haplotypes spanning multiple ancestry groups. This article addresses a question that the celebratory tone of the original announcements largely sidestepped: how mature is the actual transition? We propose the Pangenome Adoption-Readiness Transition Index (PARTI), a normalized composite metric on [0,1] that aggregates five dimensions of practical readiness — reference completeness gain (D_comp), population and ancestry representation (D_pop), toolchain native-graph support (D_tool), clinical-pipeline integration (D_clin), and variant-call equivalence relative to legacy reference workflows (D_eq) — into a single comparable score via geometric mean. PARTI is applied to five canonical use-cases: germline short-variant calling, structural-variant detection, repeat-rich and segmental-duplication analysis, pharmacogenomic interpretation, and clinical diagnostic pipelines for rare disease and oncology. Resulting scores range from 0.62 (structural-variant detection, the largest immediate win) down to 0.21 (clinical diagnostic pipelines, the slowest mover). The analysis identifies clinical-pipeline integration (D_clin) as the binding constraint across four of five use-cases: graphnative variant callers exist, but the regulatory, interpretive, and infrastructure layers — variant databases, ACMG/AMP guideline operationalization on a graph reference, electronic-healthrecord liftover, and laboratory information-management-system compatibility — remain calibrated to GRCh38. PARTI thus reframes the transition as a stratified engineering and policy problem rather than an undifferentiated paradigm shift, and identifies the specific subsystems on which the practical end of the single-reference paradigm is contingent. SAPCRAA 2024-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2024-1-4 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1521 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en human pangenome T2T-CHM13 Human Pangenome Reference Consortium reference genome variant calling; structural variation pangenome graphs PARTI index CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1520 2024-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Quantum coherence in photosynthetic antenna complexes: a reassessment of “Warm and wet” quantum biology and the pcfri functional-relevance framework Vikram Singh The two-decade arc of quantum-biology research on photosynthetic energy transfer has, over 2016–2023, undergone a substantial empirical and theoretical reassessment. The 2007 Engel et al. Nature observation of long-lived coherent oscillations in the Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO) complex at 77 K, followed by the Panitchayangkoon et al. (2010) demonstration that comparable oscillations persisted at physiological temperatures (277 K), generated the influential “warm and wet” hypothesis: that photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes exploit long-lived electronic quantum coherence to achieve near-unity energy-transfer efficiency, operating outside the conventional thermal-noise regime where decoherence should rapidly destroy electronic superpositions. The subsequent reassessment — anchored by Duan et al. (2017), who showed that electronic decoherence in FMO occurs within 60 fs at physiological temperatures, Thyrhaug et al. (2018a), and the Cao et al. (2020) 18-author consensus review “Quantum biology revisited” — has shifted the working consensus toward the interpretation that the long-lived oscillations originally attributed to electronic coherence are dominated by impulsively excited vibrational coherences rather than functionally relevant electronic superpositions. Wilkins & Dattani (2020) further argue that even if some inter-exciton coherences persist, they do not measurably enhance energy-transfer efficiency above incoherent Förster-type predictions. The Mirkovic et al. (2017) comprehensive review provides the framework against which the post-2016 reassessment is interpreted. The principal aim of this article is to formalise the cross-claim evaluation of the surviving quantum-coherence proposals through the Photosynthetic Coherence Functional Relevance Index (PCFRI), a normalised composite metric bounded on [0,1] that integrates five evaluative dimensions — spectroscopic detection robustness, origin specificity, decoherence-vsenergy-transfer timescale ratio, functional-role demonstration, and in-vivo relevance gap — and returns a quantitative ranking of competing claims. Applied to five canonical claim categories, PCFRI returns values in the 0.15–0.50 range, indicating that no current quantum-coherence proposal achieves the “demonstrated functional relevance” tier and that the post-2016 reassessment has, on the PCFRI calibration, empirically vindicated the sceptical position of Wilkins & Dattani (2020). SAPCRAA 2024-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2024-1-3 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1520 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1519 2024-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Atmospheric biosignatures of exoplanets in the jwst era: the k2-18b case, dms detection methodology, and the ebdri detection-reliability framework Larisa Gomez The first 18 months of routine James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) science operations (July 2022–December 2023) generated the highest-quality exoplanet atmospheric spectra in the history of the field and, with them, the first JWST-era biosignature claims requiring formal evidentiary evaluation. The September 2023 Madhusudhan et al. report of methane (CH₄) at 5σ and carbon dioxide (CO₂) at 3σ in the atmosphere of the habitable-zone sub-Neptune K2- 18b, together with a tentative 1–2σ detection of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) — a molecule whose terrestrial atmospheric production is dominated by marine microbial activity — placed the Madhusudhan–Piette–Constantinou (2021) Hycean-world hypothesis at the centre of an emerging biosignature-evaluation debate (Madhusudhan et al., 2023, 2021). The K2-18b case is, on the 2023 evidence, the first JWST-era exoplanet for which a biosignature claim has been formally articulated in the peer-reviewed literature, but not the only relevant result: the WASP39b Early Release Science programme delivered four parallel Nature papers establishing the JWST atmospheric-characterisation methodology, including the first detection of photochemically produced SO₂ in an exoplanet atmosphere (Ahrer et al., 2023; Rustamkulov et al., 2023; Alderson et al., 2023; Feinstein et al., 2023; Tsai et al., 2023), while the TRAPPIST-1 characterisation (Greene et al., 2023; Zieba et al., 2023; Lim et al., 2023) constrained rocky-planet atmospheric retention around late-type M-dwarf stars. The Schwieterman et al. (2018), Catling et al. (2018), Meadows et al. (2018), and Krissansen-Totton et al. (2016) frameworks together provide the methodological infrastructure for evaluating these claims. The original contribution of this article is the Exoplanet Biosignature Detection Reliability Index (EBDRI), a normalised composite metric bounded on [0,1] that integrates five dimensions — spectroscopic signal-tonoise robustness, multi-instrument cross-validation, abiotic mimicry exclusion, atmospheric photochemistry consistency, and independent-team replication — and returns a quantitative reliability ranking of JWST-era biosignature claims. Applied to the 2023 dataset, EBDRI returns moderate values for the K2-18b CH₄ and CO₂ detections (≈0.55–0.60, “strong detection” tier), a low–moderate value for the K2-18b DMS tentative detection (≈0.30, “contested” tier), a high value for the WASP-39b CO₂ detection (≈0.75, “robust detection” tier), and low values for currently claimed TRAPPIST-1 biosignature features (uniformly < 0.30). SAPCRAA 2024-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2024-1-2 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1519 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en exoplanet biosignatures K2-18b dimethyl sulfide Hycean world JWST transit spectroscopy atmospheric characterization WASP-39b TRAPPIST-1 sub-Neptune false-positive biosignatures CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1518 2024-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

The Hubble tension as an epistemic crisis of the standard cosmological model: multi-probe measurement landscape and the htrpi resolutionpathway evaluation framework Slaven Knežević The Hubble tension — the persistent and now ≥5σ disagreement between the Hubble constant H₀ inferred from the cosmic microwave background under ΛCDM (H₀ = 67.4 ± 0.5 km s⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹; Planck 2018, Aghanim et al., 2020) and the value from the local Cepheid–TypeIa-supernova distance ladder (H₀ = 73.04 ± 1.04 km s⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹; SH0ES, Riess et al., 2022) — has, over 2016–2023, moved from a curiosity at the boundary of observational cosmology to one of the principal candidate signatures of physics beyond ΛCDM. Independent corroboration of the local high value by strong-lensing time delays (H0LiCOW: 73.3⁺¹·⁷₋₁·₈; Wong et al., 2020) and megamaser distances (Megamaser Cosmology Project: 73.9 ± 3.0; Pesce et al., 2020), together with the intermediate Tip-of-Red-Giant-Branch value (69.8 ± 1.9; Freedman et al., 2019; Freedman, 2021) and the GW170817 standard-siren measurement (70.0⁺¹²·⁰₋₈·₀; Abbott et al., 2017), have produced a multi-probe landscape that ΛCDM cannot simultaneously accommodate within its uncertainty budget. The Di Valentino et al. (2021) review catalogued the breadth of the theoretical response across more than a thousand proposals; the Kamionkowski–Riess (2023) synthesis identified early dark energy as the most credible single-class resolution; the Schöneberg et al. (2022) “H0 Olympics”provided the first systematic comparative ranking against multidataset constraints. The dialectical question remaining at the December 2023 boundary is which resolution pathway is best supported when CMB, BAO, supernova, structure-growth, and lensing constraints are jointly considered. The original contribution of this article is the Hubble Tension Resolution Pathway Index (HTRPI), a normalised composite metric bounded on [0,1] that integrates five evaluation dimensions — CMB compatibility, BAO compatibility, S₈/structuregrowth compatibility, predictive distinctness from ΛCDM, and theoretical motivation strength — and returns a quantitative ranking of five canonical pathway classes (pre-recombination early dark energy, late-time dark-energy modifications, sound-horizon modifications, local-physics systematic resolutions, and new dark-sector interactions). Applied to the 2016–2023 data, HTRPI returns the highest value for early dark energy (≈0.50), intermediate values for sound-horizon modifications (≈0.42) and new dark-sector interactions (≈0.38), and lower values for late-time dark-energy modifications (≈0.32) and local-physics resolutions (≈0.28). SAPCRAA 2024-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2024-1-1 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1518 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en Hubble constant H0 tension ΛCDM early dark energy SH0ES Planck CMB distance ladder sound horizon modified gravity multi-probe cosmology CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1517 2023-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

The epistemological status of multiverse hypotheses: the limits of scientific falsifiability and the mhesi multi-axis evaluative framework Boris Risojević Multiverse hypotheses — a family of cosmological and physical proposals according to which the universe we observe is one of many physically realised universes, the others being either causally disconnected from ours, or distinguished by different fundamental constants, or distinguished by different fundamental laws — have moved since the 1990s from speculative ideas at the margins of theoretical physics into widely discussed components of mainstream cosmological discourse. Four principal variants crystallised in the 2016–2022 literature: eternal inflation plus the string landscape, Tegmark's Level IV mathematical universe, the Everettian multiplicity of quantum-mechanical branches extended by parameter variation, and bubblenucleation cosmology. The empirical status of these hypotheses is in every case the same: no direct observation of another universe is possible in principle, because the defining property of another universe is precisely that it is not causally accessible from ours. In this article I propose, as the original contribution, the Multiverse Hypothesis Epistemic Status Index (MHESI), a normalised composite metric — bounded on [0,1] — that integrates five epistemological dimensions (the strict Popperian falsifiability principle, Lakatosian research-programme progressivity, Dawid's non-empirical confirmation, internal mathematical-physical coherence, and predictive distinctiveness from non-multiverse alternatives) and returns a quantitative ranking of competing multiverse proposals along the axis of epistemic-scientific status. Applied to the four canonical multiverse variants, MHESI returns values in the range 0.20–0.50, indicating that no current multiverse hypothesis fully satisfies any operational demarcation criterion, but that the variants differ considerably in which criterion they best satisfy. SAPCRAA 2023-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2023-1-6 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1517 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en multiverse falsifiability demarcation problem non-empirical confirmation eternal inflation string landscape Tegmark Level IV Everettian quantum mechanics philosophy of cosmology Bayesian methodology CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1516 2023-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Reactivation risk of latent human herpesviruses under spaceflight stressors: an integrative review and the sherri multi-axis risk index Ana Bokuchava Reactivation of latent human herpesviruses (HHV) — EBV, VZV, HSV-1, CMV, and the roseoloviruses HHV-6 and HHV-7 — is one of the most consistently documented physiological consequences of long-duration spaceflight. Across NASA's three-decade sampling programme, herpesvirus shedding has been documented in 53% of astronauts on short-duration shuttle missions and 61% on long-duration ISS missions, with shedding frequency, viral copy number, and duration all increasing with mission length (Mehta et al., 2017; Rooney et al., 2019). The mechanism is well-characterised: spaceflight activates the HPA and SAM axes, elevating cortisol and catecholamines and suppressing cell-mediated immunity (with declines in CD8+ Tcell function and NK-cell cytotoxicity of approximately 50% by flight day 90), thereby compromising the surveillance mechanisms that maintain latency (Crucian et al., 2018; Bigley et al., 2019). The first published case of HSV-1 dermatitis during a long-duration ISS mission (Mehta et al., 2022) demonstrates that reactivation can progress from asymptomatic shedding to clinical manifestation. The dialectical question for missions beyond low-Earth orbit — extended lunar missions and Mars transits of approximately 6–9 months one-way — is whether the risk established for ≤6-month ISS missions will scale linearly, sub-linearly, or super-linearly with mission duration, and whether available antiviral countermeasures (acyclovir, valacyclovir prophylaxis) can be deployed under exploration-class operational constraints. In this article I review the 2016–2022 literature and propose, as the original contribution, the Spaceflight Herpesvirus Reactivation Risk Index (SHERRI) — a normalised composite metric on [0,1] integrating five dimensions (baseline seroprevalence, shedding rate, viral copy number, clinicalmanifestation probability, and countermeasure availability) that returns a quantitative per-virus risk ranking for mission planning. Applied to the six principal latent herpesviruses, SHERRI returns the highest risk for EBV (≈0.62) and VZV (≈0.58), intermediate scores for CMV (≈0.45) and HSV-1 (≈0.50), and lower scores for HHV-6 and HHV-7 SAPCRAA 2023-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2023-1-5 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1516 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en spaceflight latent herpesvirus reactivation EBV VZV HSV-1 CMV immune dysregulation NK cell function salivary cortisol antiviral countermeasures exploration medicine CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1515 2023-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Jwst and the problem of prematurely-formed massive galaxies: pre-mission predictions, early observations, and the structure of the emerging tension with λcdm Christopher Davis The James Webb Space Telescope, operational from July 2022, was designed to test ΛCDM predictions for first-galaxy formation in the z = 8 to z = 20 window. Within six months, NIRCam imaging from the SMACS 0723, GLASS, and CEERS Early Release programmes returned an unexpected population of luminous galaxy candidates at z ≈ 10-16 with inferred stellar masses of 10^9-10^10 M_⊙ at cosmic times of 300-500 Myr after the Big Bang. The Naidu and colleagues (2022) GLASS-z10/z12 discovery, the Castellano and colleagues (2022) z ≈ 9-15 sample, and the converging Harikane and colleagues (2022) and Donnan and colleagues (2022) UV luminosity function analyses together established that the bright-end number density at z > 10 exceeds pre-JWST Behroozi-Silk (2018) and Behroozi-UniverseMachine (2019) predictions by approximately 0.5-1 order of magnitude. Whether this excess reflects genuine over-formation of massive galaxies, contamination by lower-redshift interlopers, calibration systematics, or a ΛCDM breakdown remained unresolved at the December 2022 boundary of this review. I propose, as the original contribution, the Galaxy Formation Tension Index (GFTI), a normalised composite metric on [0,1] integrating five performance dimensions (observed-topredicted number-density ratio, inferred star formation efficiency, stellar-mass-density ratio, UVbright-fraction at z > 10, cross-survey consistency). Applied to the December 2022 dataset, GFTI returns approximately 0.55 — the “significant tension” tier, well below the 0.75 refutation threshold. SAPCRAA 2023-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2023-1-4 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1515 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en James Webb Space Telescope high-redshift galaxies UV luminosity function ΛCDM cosmic dawn reionization galaxy formation Behroozi-Silk constraint prematurely-formed massive galaxies CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1514 2023-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Fine-tuning of fundamental constants and the Anthropic principle: metaphysical implications and a critique of “Causal explanation through selection” Rafael Souza Mendes The fact that several fundamental physical constants — the cosmological constant, the Higgs mass, the strength of the electromagnetic and the strong nuclear couplings, the protonelectron mass ratio, the deuteron binding energy — appear to lie within narrow ranges of parameter space within which complex chemistry and the formation of long-lived stars and galaxies become possible has, since the 1970s, generated one of the most contested explanatory disputes in the foundations of physics. The two principal proposed explanations are causally and epistemically inequivalent. The first is the design hypothesis, on which the values of the constants reflect intentional fine-tuning by some agent. The second is the multiverse-with-anthropicselection hypothesis, on which the constants take varying values across a vast ensemble of physically realised universes, and observers necessarily find themselves in the subset of universes whose parameter values permit observer formation. Between 2016 and 2022, a substantial philosophical literature has clarified the structure of the multiverse-with-anthropic-selection argument, identified several long-standing objections (the inverse gambler's fallacy, the typicality problem, the measure problem, and the problem of specifying an independent probability distribution over the multiverse), and produced a new generation of formal Bayesian and decision-theoretic analyses of the argument. The dialectical situation in mid-2022 was that the multiverse-anthropic explanation is taken seriously by a non-trivial portion of the physics and philosophy of physics communities but is not regarded as decisive, and that a clear metric for the explanatory strength of competing multiverse-anthropic accounts has not been formulated. In this article I propose, as the original contribution, the Anthropic Explanation Strength Index (AESI), a single normalised composite metric — bounded on [0,1] — that integrates five performance dimensions (independent multiverse evidence, probability-measure specificity, inverse-gambler's-fallacy resistance, typicality-prediction generation, and Standard-Model parameter compatibility) and returns a quantitative ranking of competing multiverse-anthropic explanations. Applied to four canonical multiverse frameworks (eternal inflation plus string landscape, Tegmark Level IV mathematical universe, Everettian quantum branching with parameter variation, and bubble-nucleation cosmology), AESI returns values in the 0.30-0.55 range, indicating that none of the canonical frameworks currently meets the threshold of decisive explanatory power and that the anthropic explanation should be regarded as a working hypothesis rather than as a settled solution to the fine-tuning problem. SAPCRAA 2023-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2023-1-3 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1514 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en fine-tuning anthropic principle multiverse fundamental constants cosmological constant inverse gambler's fallacy Bayesian methodology philosophy of cosmology metaphysical explanation CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1513 2023-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Cryo-electron tomography in native cells: atomic resolution in context Juliana Barbosa Cardoso Between 2016 and 2022, cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) underwent a generational transition from a method that produced informative but resolution-limited images of vitrified cells to one that produced, on a growing subset of targets, atomic-resolution structures inside intact bacterial and eukaryotic cells without recourse to purification. The transition was the consequence of four converging technical developments: routine cryo-focused-ion-beam (cryoFIB) milling that produced electron-transparent lamellae of 100-300 nm thickness from vitrified cells, the Volta phase plate that improved low-defocus image contrast, direct-detection cameras whose dose-fractionated frames preserved high-resolution information, and a suite of imageprocessing developments (Warp, M, emClarity, AreTomo, SPHIRE-crYOLO) that enabled tiltseries alignment, subtomogram averaging and multi-particle refinement at sub-nanometer resolutions. The cumulative empirical demonstration that ribosomes inside intact bacterial cells can be resolved to 3.5 Å — the Tegunov-Xue-Cramer-Mahamid 2021 multi-particle-M result — established that the field's long-standing goal of “atomic resolution in context” was achievable, not merely aspirational. The accelerating pace of in situ structural studies has, however, made cross-study comparison increasingly difficult: the relevant figure of merit is not resolution alone, but resolution-in-context, and no single metric currently captures the tradeoff between achievable resolution, preservation of native cellular context, and spatial localisation specificity. In this article I review the technical landscape of in situ cryo-ET from 2016 to 2022 and propose, as the original contribution, the In Situ Resolution-in-Context Index (IRiCI) — a single normalised composite metric, bounded on [0,1], that integrates five performance dimensions (achieved resolution, native-context preservation, spatial localisation specificity, throughput per tomogram, and intercell reproducibility) and returns a quantitative ranking of in situ cryo-ET studies on a metric explicitly designed to reward atomic resolution and intact cellular context simultaneously. Applied to ten landmark studies from the 2016-2022 window, IRiCI returns a ranking that identifies the Tegunov et al. (2021) in-cell ribosome-antibiotic structure and the Allegretti et al. (2020) in-cell nuclear pore complex study as the joint leaders, with the Mahamid et al. (2016) nuclear-periphery work as the foundational precursor. SAPCRAA 2023-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2023-1-2 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1513 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en krio-elektronska tomografija cryo-FIB glodanje prosjek subtomograma in situ strukturna biologija atomska rezolucija Volta fazna ploča nuklearni kompleks pora ribosom Warp/M softver nativni ćelijski kontekst CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836

oai:sapcraa.com:article/1512 2023-12-30 cosmological-astrobiological-review

Second-generation optogenetic control of neurons: bistable and near-infrared-activated channels for in Vivo applications João Henrique Albuquerque The first decade of optogenetics, anchored on channelrhodopsin-2 and its early variants, established the basic capability of millisecond-precision genetic control over identified neurons but exposed three persistent technical constraints: shallow tissue penetration of blue light, the requirement for high light intensities that produce phototoxicity in chronic protocols, and the obligatory presence of an implanted intracranial fibre. Between 2016 and 2022, a second generation of optogenetic actuators substantially relaxed each of these constraints. Ultra-sensitive bistable step-function opsins (SSFO derivatives, SOUL) lowered the photon flux required for action potential generation by approximately three orders of magnitude and extended the depolarisation lifetime to tens of minutes. Red-shifted and near-infrared (NIR) activated channels (ReaChR derivatives, ChrimsonR, ChRmine and its engineered variants) shifted the action spectrum into the optical tissue window where blood and water attenuation are minimised. Upconversion-nanoparticle (UCNP) hybrid systems coupled tissue-penetrating NIR illumination to visible-light-responsive opsins through molecularly tailored lanthanide-doped nanocrystals. Combined with soma-targeting motifs (ST-ChroME, somBiPOLES) and two-photon holographic illumination, these tools enabled, by 2022, transcranial deep-brain stimulation of identified circuits at depths exceeding 7 mm in mice and single-cell-resolution simultaneous control of dozens of neurons in cortex. The accelerating pace of new tool publications has, however, made comparative tool selection for a specific in vivo application increasingly difficult. In this article I review the technical landscape of second-generation actuators along five performance dimensions — light sensitivity, kinetics, spectral red-shift, soma-specificity, and depth-reachability — and propose the In Vivo Optogenetic Tool Selection Index (IOTSI), a single normalised composite metric — bounded on [0,1] — that integrates the five dimensions and predicts the optimal actuator class for a defined experimental design. IOTSI applied to ten representative second-generation tools returns a tool-by-application ranking that, on the basis of currently published in vivo data, prefers ChRmine-class actuators for transcranial deep-brain stimulation, SOUL-class step-function opsins for chronic minimally-invasive protocols, and STChroME or somBiPOLES for two-photon holographic single-cell control SAPCRAA 2023-12-30 Text application/pdf https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65932/CAR-2023-1-1 https://www.sapcraa.com/article-preview/1512 Cosmological and Astrobiological Review en optogenetics second-generation channelrhodopsin step-function opsin ChRmine near-infrared optogenetics upconversion nanoparticles BiPOLES soma-targeted opsin in vivo neural control CC BY 4.0 SAPCRAA https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ urn:ISSN:3126-3844 urn:ISSN:3126-3836