Mars Organics Can’t Be Fully Explained by Geological Processes Alone, NASA Study Says
Archaeopteryx’s Feeding-Related Structures Reflect Elevated Demands of Flight, Scientists Say
Bonobos Demonstrate Imaginative Ability in New Experiments
Jupiter is Smaller and More ‘Squashed’ than Previously Believed, New Juno Data Reveal
Giant Pythons Once Lived in Taiwan
Tiny New Species of Herbivorous Dinosaur Unearthed in Spain
A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals for the first time the delicate interplay of cosmic dust and stellar winds in the Egg Nebula, a bipolar protoplanetary nebula within the constellation Cygnus. This Hubble image shows the Egg Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Bruce Balick, UWashington. The Egg Nebula resides approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus. Also...
A new analysis of data from four instruments aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has demonstrated the crucial role that Saturn’s small icy moon Enceladus plays in circulating energy and momentum around the parent planet’s space environment. Illustration of the electrodynamic interaction between Enceladus and Saturn; the primary Alfvén wing is shown in blue, and the reflected Alfvén wings in...
Technological innovations in Africa and Western Europe in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene signal the behavioral complexity of hominin populations. Yet, at the same time, it has long been believed that hominin technologies in Eastern Asia lack signs of innovation and sophistication. Archaeologists have now uncovered evidence of technological innovations at the site of Xigou in China’s Henan...
Tyrannoroter heberti, a new species of pantylid ‘microsaur’ from the Carboniferous period, shows that some of Earth’s earliest land vertebrates had already evolved complex teeth for grinding plants, suggesting terrestrial herbivory emerged rapidly after animals moved onto land. Life reconstruction of Tyrannoroter heberti. Image credit: Hannah Fredd. Tyrannoroter heberti lived in what is now...
The consistent performance of Kanzi the bonobo in pretend play experiments suggests that the mental capacity to imagine nonexistent objects may trace back 6 to 9 million years, rewriting assumptions about the uniqueness of human imagination. Kanzi the bonobo. Image credit: Ape Initiative. “It really is game-changing that their mental lives go beyond the here and now,” said Dr. Christopher Krupenye,...
Physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst argue that an ultra-high-energy neutrino detected by the KM3NeT experiment could be the signature of an explosion of a ‘quasi-extremal primordial black hole,’ pointing toward new physics beyond the Standard Model. The KM3NeT experiment has recently observed a neutrino with an energy around 100 PeV, and IceCube has detected five neutrinos with...
In one of the largest prospective cohort studies to date, moderate consumption of caffeinated coffee (2-3 cups a day) or tea (1-2 cups a day) correlated with reduced dementia risk and modest improvements in cognitive function, although decaffeinated coffee showed no protective effect. Zhang et al. determined that moderate caffeinated coffee and tea intake can lower dementia risk. Image credit: Sci.News. Early...
The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is a cold-adapted herbivore that went extinct around 14,000 years ago, but little is known about their population decline prior to extinction. In new research, scientists from the Centre for Palaeogenetics and Stockholm University generated a high-coverage genome from one of the last known woolly rhinoceros remains, which was recovered from the stomach...
Two immense, ultrahot rock structures located at the base of Earth’s mantle, around 2,900 km beneath Africa and the Pacific, have been shaping Earth’s magnetic field for millions of years, according to a new study led by University of Liverpool’s Professor Andy Biggin. Two enormous blobs of solid, superheated material located at the base of Earth’s mantle affect the underlying liquid outer...
In one of the largest prospective cohort studies to date, moderate consumption of caffeinated coffee (2-3 cups a day) or tea (1-2 cups a day) correlated with reduced dementia risk and modest improvements in cognitive function, although decaffeinated coffee showed no protective effect. Zhang et al. determined that moderate caffeinated coffee and tea intake can lower dementia risk. Image credit: Sci.News. Early...
