Featured News | Sci.News

Artist’s reconstruction of an Asian caveman. Image credit: Peter Schouten.

Enigmatic Skull Found in Greece Suggests Early Homo sapiens Reached Europe 210,000 Years Ago

Jul 11, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A 210,000-year-old partial skull found in southern Greece about four decades ago has been identified as the earliest example of anatomically modern Homo...

Denisovans were probably dark-skinned, unlike the pale Neanderthals. The picture shows a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London.

Modern Asians Acquired Rare Dental Trait from Denisovans: Study

Jul 10, 2019 by News Staff

A 3-rooted lower molar, a rare trait primarily found in modern Asian lineages, was previously thought to have evolved after Homo sapiens dispersed from...

This image of 2019 LF6 was captured by ZTF on June 10, 2019. Image credit: ZTF / Caltech Optical Observatories.

Astronomers Find Asteroid with Record-Short Year

Jul 10, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a state-of-the-art camera at the Palomar Observatory in southern California, have spotted a very...

Scanning electron micrograph of HIV particles infecting a human T cell. Image credit: National Institutes of Health.

Scientists Use CRISPR and Antiviral Therapy to Eliminate HIV-1 DNA from Genomes of Mice

Jul 9, 2019 by News Staff

Using the modified CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system and a therapeutic strategy known as long-acting slow-effective release antiviral therapy (LASER ART),...

A dust storm underway at the edge of the north polar ice cap of Mars. The image was taken by Mars Express’ Visual Monitoring Camera on May 29, 2019. Image credit: ESA / GCP / UPV / EHU Bilbao.

ESA’s Mars Express Spots Dust Storms at Martian North Pole

Jul 8, 2019 by News Staff

ESA’s Mars Express orbiter has observed several local and regional dust storms brewing at the north pole of the Red Planet. A dust storm underway at...

World’s Largest Macroalgal Bloom Discovered

Jul 5, 2019 by News Staff

Free-floating mats of brown macroalgae called Sargassum in the center of the North Atlantic were first reported by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century...

An artist’s impression of CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope detecting a fast radio burst. Image credit: Swinburne University of Technology / OzGrav ARC Centre of Excellence.

Second Non-Repeating Fast Radio Burst Traced Back to Its Home Galaxy

Jul 4, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Deep Synoptic Array-10 at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory have discovered a new non-repeating fast radio burst (FRB), called FRB...

Nolden et al assessed the ability of common beverages to reduce oral burn from capsaicin. Image credit: Jill Wellington.

Milk is Best Choice to Mitigate Oral Burn from Chili Peppers: Study

Jul 4, 2019 by News Staff

Capsaicin, a chemical compound derived from chili peppers, is classically considered an irritant, due to the warming and burning sensations it causes....

This artist’s illustration shows a giant cloud of hydrogen streaming off the warm Neptune GJ 3470b. The host star’s intense radiation is heating the hydrogen in the planet’s upper atmosphere to a point where it escapes into space. GJ 3470b is losing hydrogen at a rate 100 times faster than a previously observed warm Neptune whose atmosphere is also evaporating away. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Player, STScI.

Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes Probe Atmosphere of Sub-Neptune

Jul 3, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers are curious about the two recently-discovered classes of planets not found in the Solar System: the so-called super-Earths and sub-Neptunes,...

This artist’s impression shows the first interstellar asteroid -- 1I/2017 U1 (’Oumuamua). Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Interstellar Object ‘Oumuamua Has Purely Natural Origin, Say Astronomers

Jul 2, 2019 by News Staff

A fast moving, cigar-shaped object of extrasolar origin was discovered on October 19, 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawai’i. Named 1I/2017 U1...

Astronomers have monitored the Eta Carinae binary system for more than two decades. It has been prone to violent outbursts, including an episode in the 1840s during which ejected material formed the bipolar bubbles seen here. Now, using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument to probe the nebula in ultraviolet light, they have uncovered the glow of magnesium embedded in warm gas (shown in blue) in places they had not seen it before. The luminous magnesium resides in the space between the dusty bipolar bubbles and the outer shock-heated nitrogen-rich filaments (shown in red). The streaks visible in the blue region outside the lower-left lobe are a striking feature of the image. These streaks are created when the star’s light rays poke through the dust clumps scattered along the bubble’s surface. Wherever the ultraviolet light strikes the dense dust, it leaves a long, thin shadow that extends beyond the lobe into the surrounding gas. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / N. Smith, University of Arizona / J. Morse, BoldlyGo Institute.

Hubble Captures Eta Carinae in Ultraviolet Light

Jul 2, 2019 by News Staff

Eta Carinae is a binary stellar system approximately 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Carina. Also known as HD 93308 and Hen 3-481, the system...

An artist’s conception of the L 98-59 planetary system. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

TESS Discovers Planetary System with Three Terrestrial-Size Exoplanets

Jul 1, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered three small planets orbiting a bright M-dwarf star called L 98-59....

Self-Torque: Physicists Discover New Property of Light

Jul 1, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of physicists has theoretically predicted and experimentally generated light beams with a new property that they call the self-torque...

An artist’s impression of ASKAP finding a fast radio burst and determining its precise location. The Keck, VLT and Gemini South optical telescopes joined ASKAP with follow-up observations to image the host galaxy. Image credit: Andrew Howells / CSIRO.

Astronomers Pinpoint Location of Non-Repeating Fast Radio Burst

Jun 28, 2019 by News Staff

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief radio emissions from distant astronomical sources. Some are known to repeat, but most are single bursts, occurring only...

Pachystruthio dmanisensis. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

Giant Birds Roamed Europe Two Million Years Ago

Jun 28, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A giant ostrich-like bird that lived about two million years ago (Pleistocene epoch) has been identified from a fossilized femur found in the Crimean Peninsula,...

Hospital insects present a potential to contribute to persistence and spread of antimicrobial-resistant pathogenic bacteria in the hospital environment. Image credit: Virvoreanu Laurentiu.

Hospital Insects Harbor Potentially Harmful Bacteria, Finds New Study

Jun 28, 2019 by News Staff

In a new study published this month in the Journal of Medical Entomology, researchers from Aston University collected and analyzed 19,937 flying insects...

The occasional use of stone tools as ‘strike-a-lights’ was a technocultural feature shared among Neanderthals in France.

Neanderthals Used Pine Resin as Glue to Haft Stone Tools into Handles

Jun 27, 2019 by News Staff

The hafting of stone tools was an important advance in the technological evolution of Paleolithic humans. Joining a handle to a knife or scraper and attaching...

An artist’s concept depicting the presence of buckyballs in space. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Find Ionized Buckyballs in Interstellar Medium

Jun 27, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of ionized (electrically-charged) buckminsterfullerene in the interstellar...

Scientists Find Extraterrestrial Cyanide Compounds in Meteorites

Jun 26, 2019 by News Staff

A research team led by scientists from Boise State University and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has identified several complex cyanide compounds...