Just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, MXDFz4.4 — a galaxy 100 times smaller than the Milky Way — was blasting ionizing light through the neutral hydrogen that once shrouded everything, giving astronomers their closest-ever look at cosmic reionization in action. This illustration portrays galaxy MXDFz4.4 when it existed 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. Image credit: NASA / ESA...

NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered the most extensive evidence yet of complex organic molecules on Mars, detecting macromolecular carbon in rocks from the Bright Angel formation in Jezero Crater. The discovery does not constitute evidence of alien life, but it strengthens the case that the building blocks of life may have been widespread on the Red Planet billions of years ago. This artist’s...

Scientists have uncovered compelling new evidence that early human ancestors, likely Homo erectus, were deliberately bringing fire into Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa as far back as 1.79 million years ago. Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Image credit: Michael Chazan. Wonderwerk Cave is located 60 km south of the town of Kuruman in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. The site has yielded a fossil...

Named Panthera pardus burgtonnae, the newly-identified leopard subspecies roamed Europe during the Eemian interglacial period and was far more heavily built than modern leopards. Although Panthera pardus burgtonnae was roughly similar in length to modern African leopards (Panthera pardus pardus), its skeleton suggests a much stockier build. Image credit: Thomas Fuhrmann / CC BY-SA 4.0. Panthera pardus...

Scientists in Australia have revealed that what was long thought to be a single widespread planigale species is actually four distinct ones, including an entirely new species found only in the rocky slopes in Kakadu National Park. Revised distributions of the four planigale species formerly attributed to Planigale ingrami. Image credit: Umbrello et al., doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlag082. Planigales...

Physicists with LHCb Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have detected the elusive Ωcc⁺ baryon, a particle containing two charm quarks and one strange quark, completing a long-sought family of doubly charmed baryons first predicted over half a century ago. An artist’s impression of the doubly charmed Ωcc⁺ baryon. Image credit: Daniel Dominguez / CERN. “Quarks are basic...

A large review of clinical trials published this week in the journal PAIN suggests that melatonin — the over-the-counter sleep supplement taken by millions of people — may offer meaningful relief for patients suffering from chronic musculoskeletal conditions such as low back pain, osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia. Melatonin showed modest benefits for musculoskeletal pain in a new analysis,...

Scientists have generated genetic data from 27 Neanderthals who lived in Belgium and France less than approximately 52,500 years ago, painting a richer and more surprising portrait of how our closest hominin cousins organized their lives before their disappearance. Reconstruction of a Neanderthal. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum. Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia from at least around...

Zircon crystals and impact-altered minerals show that a massive asteroid slammed into what is now the Pilbara region of Western Australia about 3 billion years ago. The North Pole Dome crater: (A) simplified map of the East Pilbara Terrane (EPT, Western Australia), showing Paleoarchean granite domes (pink) and greenstone belts (greens and blues); the North Pole Dome (NPD) lies near the terrane center;...

The way humans laugh — in rapid, rhythmically timed bursts — is not uniquely ours. New research by the University of Warwick and the University of Portsmouth shows that all great apes, from orangutans to gorillas to chimpanzees, share the same fundamental timing structure in their laughter, suggesting that the common ancestor of all living great apes was already laughing in a recognizable...