News Archive for 2023

Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Oregon, the United States. Image credit: University of Oregon.

Ancient Humans Occupied Oregon Rockshelter 18,250 Years Ago

Jul 7, 2023 by News Staff

Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Oregon, the United States, is one of the oldest human-occupation sites in North America. Rimrock Draw Rockshelter in Oregon,...

Recreation drawing of ‘The Ivory Lady.’ Image credit: Miriam Luciañez Triviño.

New Scientific Method Reveals Female Leadership in Copper Age Iberia

Jul 7, 2023 by News Staff

The recently developed method of sex determination via sexually dimorphic amelogenin peptides in human tooth enamel represents a breakthrough for both...

A small piece of Burmese amber preserving feathers interpreted as belonging to a juvenile enantiornithine bird: (A) amber with the dorsal surface of the feather cluster exposed; (B) ventral surface exposed; (C) close up of the ventral surface (region marked in B); (D) close up of the ventral surface region marked in (C); (E) close up of the ventral surface region marked in (D); (F) close up of the dorsal surface marked in (A, larger rectangle); (G) close up of the dorsal surface marked in (A, smaller rectangle). Dotted lines indicate desiccation surfaces. Scale bars - 0.5 mm in (A, B, D and F), 0.1 mm in (C); 0.3 mm in (E); and 0.2 mm in (G). Anatomical abbreviations: ipl - immature plumaceous feather; ipn - immature pennaceous feather; ks - keratinous sheath; pf - probable filamentous ‘protofeathers.’ Image credit: O’Connor et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2023.105572.

99-Million-Year-Old Burmese Amber Preserves Feathers of Immature Enantiornithine Bird

Jul 7, 2023 by News Staff

The specimen provides the first unequivocal evidence of immature feathers in the Mesozoic fossil record. A small piece of Burmese amber preserving feathers...

CEERS 1019’s black hole existed just over 570 million years after the Big Bang and weighs only 9 million solar masses. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Astronomers Detect Farthest Active Supermassive Black Hole Yet

Jul 6, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA / CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered an active supermassive black hole in CEERS 1019, a galaxy that existed...

Primary sequential molt in Microraptor; the arrow indicates the location of the molt-related gap within the primary feathers. Scale bar - 10 cm. Image credit: Y. Kiat & J.K. O’Connor, doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-05048-x.

Rarity of Molt Evidence in Feathered Dinosaurs Suggests Annual Molt Evolved Later among Flying Birds

Jul 6, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Feathers are a primitive trait among pennaraptoran dinosaurs, which today are represented by living birds, the only clade of dinosaurs to survive the end-Cretaceous...

This image, taken with ESA’s Solar Orbiter on April 1, 2022, shows a partial section of the Sun with gas at 1 million degrees; the red paths correspond to some of the rain tracks analyzed by Antolin et al. Image credit: Patrick Antolin / ESA / Solar Orbiter / EUI / HRI.

Meteor-Like ‘Fireballs’ Spotted in Solar Corona

Jul 6, 2023 by News Staff

Coronal rain is the most dramatic display of cooling in the Sun’s corona. It corresponds to cool and dense clumps of plasma appearing over a timescale...

Xing et al. report printable metallic gels (pendular suspensions) consisting of an aqueous suspension of copper particles connected by bridges of liquid eutectic gallium indium alloy (EGaIn). Pendular suspensions rely on capillary forces to form networks between solid particles with a composition-dependent rheology, but prior studies have focused on insulating suspensions. Here, the rheology of a conductive solid-liquid-liquid suspension is tuned for 3D printing by varying the composition and the pH; the latter promotes metallic wetting. The dry printed parts have metallic electrical conductivity without requiring a sintering step. Drying at elevated temperatures can accelerate the removal of water while creating stress that drives shape change (i.e., 4D printing). As a demonstration, the authors print a conductive spider that lifts and assembles its own body from an initially flat shape. Such conductive inks are promising for printing metallic structures under ambient conditions. Image credit: Xing et al., doi: 10.1016/j.matt.2023.06.015.

Scientists Develop Metallic Gel for Conductive 3D and 4D Printing

Jul 6, 2023 by News Staff

Materials scientists at the North Carolina State University have connected copper particles with gallium indium alloy bridges to form a conductive printing...

Hubble image of NGC 6946, the host galaxy of both SNe 2004et and 2017eaw. Bottom left-hand panel: composite image of SN 2004et taken with Webb/MIRI. Bottom right-hand panel: composite image of SN 2017eaw taken with Webb/MIRI. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Ori Fox, STScI / Melissa Shahbandeh, STScI / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

Webb Observes Dust Reservoirs in Two Type IIP Supernovae

Jul 6, 2023 by News Staff

The dust reservoirs observed in two type IIP supernovae, SN 2004et and SN 2017eaw, both in the medium-sized, face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946 about 22 million...

The 300,000-year-old ‘giant handaxe’ from the Maritime Academy site in Frindsbury, Kent, England. Image credit: Ingrey et al., doi: 10.11141/ia.61.6.

300,000-Year-Old ‘Giant Handaxes’ Unearthed in England

Jul 5, 2023 by News Staff

Archaeologists have found several handaxes — two of which can be classed as ‘giant handaxes’ — at the Maritime Academy site in Frindsbury,...

This illustration shows the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex (CBVC) on the Moon’s far side and the boxed area indicated a large granite zone, which could not be picked up by topography. Image credit: Siegler et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06183-5.

Planetary Scientists Find Large Granite Formation on Moon’s Far Side

Jul 5, 2023 by News Staff

The 50-km-diameter granitic system discovered below the far side feature known as Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex likely was formed from the cooling...

This deep galaxy field from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) shows an arrangement of 10 distant galaxies marked by eight white circles in a diagonal, thread-like line. Two of the circles contain more than one galaxy. This 3 million light-year-long filament is anchored by a very distant and luminous quasar. Ccalled J0305-3150, this quasar appears in the middle of the cluster of three circles on the right side of the image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Feige Wang, University of Arizona.

Webb Detects 3-Million-Light-Year-Long Filament of Galaxies in Early Universe

Jul 5, 2023 by News Staff

Galaxies are strung along filaments in the vast cosmic web, which also contains enormous voids. Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers...

Life reconstruction of Anomalocaris. Image credit: Katrina Kenny.

Cambrian Radiodont Was Speedy, But Not Strong Enough to Crack Trilobite Shells

Jul 5, 2023 by News Staff

Anomalocaris canadensis — the iconic 60-cm radiodont from the 508-million-year-old Burgess Shale of Canada — is one of the largest Cambrian...

The Mizoram parachute gecko (Gekko mizoramensis). Image credit: Lal Muansanga.

New Species of Gliding Gecko Discovered in India

Jul 4, 2023 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from Mizoram University and the Max Planck Institute for Biology has discovered a new species of the gecko genus Gekko living in...

The direct image of the giant exoplanet AF Lep b. Image credit: Franson et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/acd6f6.

Astronomers Directly Image Jupiter-Like Exoplanet around Nearby Young Star

Jul 4, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The giant exoplanet AF Leporis b orbits a 1.2-solar-mass star in the 24-million-year-old beta Pictoris moving group. The direct image of the giant exoplanet...

This Webb image shows NGC 3256, a spiral galaxy located 131 million light-years away in the constellation of Vela. The galaxy’s core is radiating very brightly. Streaks of dust glow intensely red, in the center and across most of the galaxy. This gas is surrounded by a dark gray halo made of the galaxy’s stars. The halo stretches out into a tidal tail at the upper-left, and another at the bottom. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / L. Armus / A. Evans.

Webb Snaps Stunning Image of NGC 3256

Jul 4, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope of the Milky Way-sized spiral galaxy NGC 3256. This Webb image shows NGC 3256,...

A snapshot of parallel trajectories of odor particles in the cat olfactory region (colored dots). Image credit: Wu et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011119.

Domestic Cat Nose Functions as Highly Efficient Gas Chromatograph, Says New Study

Jul 4, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists from Ohio State University and elsewhere have developed a 3D computer model of the nose of the domestic cat (Felis catus) and simulated how...

This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Terra Sirenum region on Mars and its gullies. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.

Martian Gullies Could Have Been Formed by On-And-Off Periods of Liquid Meltwater

Jul 4, 2023 by News Staff

Some steep slopes on Mars have gullies with morphologies suggesting that they were formed by a liquid. However, the planet’s current climate is not conducive...

Hypothesized reconstruction of Vampyrofugiens atramentum. Image credit: A. Lethiers.

Jurassic Vampire Squid Had Ink Sac and Luminous Organs

Jul 3, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of vampyromorph coleoid from a fossil specimen found in the Middle Jurassic La Voulte-sur-Rhône...

This image from Webb’s NIRCam instrument shows Saturn, its rings and some of its moons. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / M. Tiscareno, SETI Institute / M. Hedman, University of Idaho / M. El Moutamid, Cornell University / M. Showalter, SETI Institute / L. Fletcher, University of Leicester / H. Hammel, AURA / J. DePasquale, STScI.

Webb Images Saturn, Its Moons and Ring System

Jul 3, 2023 by News Staff

This new image of Saturn, taken with the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope on June 25, 2023, serves as...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Universe was Five Times Slower Soon after Big Bang, Astrophysicists Say

Jul 3, 2023 by News Staff

A fundamental consequence of the relativistic picture of expanding space is cosmological time dilation, where events in the distant Universe appear to...

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