Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have for the first time identified hydrogen sulfide gas in the atmospheres of three gas-giant exoplanets orbiting HR 8799, a 30-million-year-old star located in the constellation of Pegasus. They’ve found that the sulfur must have originated from solid material in the planets’ birth disk. Artist’s rendering of the planetary system...

In a paper to be published in the Planetary Science Journal, scientists from SETI Institute, Southwest Research Institute, Caltech and the Observatoire de Paris argue that two Saturnian moons, Titan and Hyperion, are not primordial worlds, but the result of a dramatic merger between two ancient moons. The findings could rewrite theories about how Titan’s thick atmosphere emerged and may even help...

A tiny copper-alloy object long dismissed as a simple awl has been reclassified as the earliest known rotary metal drill from ancient Egypt. Original photograph of the Badari drill published in 1927 by Guy Brunton (left) and the actual artifact. Image credit: Martin Odler & Jiří Kmošek, doi: 10.1553/AEundL35s289. The ancient drill is only 6.3 cm (2.5 inches) long and weighs about 1.5 grams. Dating...

Paleontologists have unearthed fossilized bones of one of the smallest sauropodomorph dinosaurs from the Late Triassic of southern Brazil, offering fresh insights into early dinosaur development and physiology. Massospondylus carinatus, a species of small sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of southern Africa. Image credit: Nobu Tamura, http://spinops.blogspot.com / Patty Jansen / Sci.News. Dr....

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...

New research reviewing decades of nutritional studies suggests that pecans — rich in polyphenols, healthy fats, and fiber — may improve diet quality and lipid profiles, offering potential cardiometabolic benefits beyond simple calorie counts. Pecans are a tree nut native to America with a rich content of unsaturated fatty acids, minerals, fiber, and a diverse array of bioactive components,...

Between 73,000 and 20,000 years ago (Late Pleistocene), the Japanese Archipelago was inhabited by cave lions (Panthera spelaea), according to a new genetic and proteomic analysis of fossilized felid remains previously attributed to tigers (Panthera tigris). Cave lions painted in the Chauvet Cave, France. Lions and tigers were widespread apex predators during the Late Pleistocene and integral components...

New orbital data reveal that the most recently active volcanic systems on Mars weren’t simple one-off blasts into space; instead, long-lived magmatic plumbing beneath Pavonis Mons, one of the Red Planet’s largest volcanoes, reshaped lava flows over time, with distinct eruptive phases and evolving chemical signatures, offering fresh insights into the planet’s inner dynamics and how rocky planets...

For years glaciologists puzzled over strange plume-like structures hidden deep within the Greenland Ice Sheet. Now a new study by scientists from the University of Bergen, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Oxford suggests that these enigmatic features are caused by thermal convection, a process usually linked to the Earth’s mantle. Location of large plume-like structures...