Using data from ESA’s Gaia mission and the NASA Exoplanet Archive, astronomers at Cornell University have identified 45 rocky exoplanets in the empirical habitable zone and 24 worlds in the narrower 3D habitable zone, offering scientists a focused guide in the search for extraterrestrial life. An artist’s impression of a planetary system around a slightly hotter star than our Sun. Image credit:...

Samples returned by JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 mission from the C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu contain all five canonical nucleobases — purines (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidines (cytosine, thymine and uracil) — pointing to a cosmic origin for some of life’s fundamental chemistry. Hayabusa-2 image of the asteroid Ryugu as seen from a distance of 3.7 miles. A particularly large crater is...

Examining 31 ancient societies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, researchers found that democratic systems were more widespread than once believed — and not determined by population size or geography. The Acropolis at Athens by Leo von Klenze. The word ‘democracy’ was, of course, invented by the Greeks — demokratia meant simply that people (demos) had power (kratos). This definition...

A semi-complete skull of an adult Edmontosaurus at Montana State’s Museum of the Rockies preserves a fleeting moment from the Late Cretaceous: a tyrannosaur biting into a duck-billed dinosaur’s face. A Tyrannosaurus attacking an adult Edmontosaurus. Image credit: Jenn Hall. The damaged Edmontosaurus skull was found in 2005 in the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana. The fossil is now housed...

A team of researchers from the United States and Germany has identified fungal proteins that can freeze water at relatively warm subzero temperatures, raising the prospect of safer cloud seeding, improved climate models and new advances in food preservation and medicine. Mortierellomycetes and Umbelopsidomycetes fungi from freshwater ecosystems in Korea. Image credit: Goh et al., doi: 10.4489/kjm.20230018. In...

Physicists from the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have discovered a new kind of heavy proton-like particle. Known as Ξcc⁺, this particle contains two charm quarks and one down quark, giving scientists a rare new way to probe the strong force that binds the building blocks of matter. An artist’s impression of the doubly charmed baryon Ξcc⁺, which contains two charm...

New experiments show that tar made from birch bark — long known as a tool adhesive — can inhibit harmful bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, suggesting Neanderthals may have used it to treat wounds and manage infection during the Ice Age. Neanderthals probably used birch tar for multiple functions, including treating their wounds. Siemssen et al. confirm that birch tar possesses selective...

In a randomized clinical trial of older adults, researchers found that taking multivitamins for two years modestly slowed epigenetic markers of aging — equivalent to roughly four months less biological aging compared with a placebo. Li et al. evaluated the two-year effect of daily multivitamin-multimineral supplements and cocoa extract (500 mg cocoa flavanols per day, including 80 mg epicatechin)...

By tracing magnetic signals preserved in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia, geoscientists have found the oldest direct evidence yet that parts of the planet’s outer shell were shifting across the globe, pushing the origins of plate motion deep into Earth’s early history. Hadean Earth. Image credit: Alec Brenner. “There has been a huge range of ages suggested for timing,” said...

By tracing magnetic signals preserved in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia, geoscientists have found the oldest direct evidence yet that parts of the planet’s outer shell were shifting across the globe, pushing the origins of plate motion deep into Earth’s early history. Hadean Earth. Image credit: Alec Brenner. “There has been a huge range of ages suggested for timing,” said...