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Kaminski et al show that, in only 33,000 years, domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans; dogs with expressive eyebrows had a selection advantage and ‘puppy dog eyes’ are the result of selection based on humans’ preferences. Image credit: JacLou DL.

Dogs Evolved New Muscles around Eyes to Better Communicate with Humans, Study Says

Jun 18, 2019 by News Staff

Domestication shaped wolves (Canis lupus) into dogs (Canis familiaris) and transformed both their behavior and their anatomy. A new study, published in...

Almond Genome Sequenced

Jun 17, 2019 by News Staff

The domesticated almond tree (Prunus amygdalus) has been feeding humans for millennia. Derivation from the wild, bitter, and toxic almond required loss...

A specimen of Redlichia rex from the Emu Bay Shale, Kangaroo Island, Australia. Scale bar - 10 mm. Image credit: Holmes et al, doi: 10.1080/14772019.2019.1605411.

Giant Cambrian Trilobite Species Unearthed in Australia

Jun 14, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed fossils of a giant trilobite species that inhabited Australian waters approximately 500 million years ago (Cambrian period). An...

No one knows what dark matter is, but this invisible form of matter makes up roughly a quarter of the Universe. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Dark Monopoles: Theoretical Physicists Propose New Candidate for Dark Matter

Jun 13, 2019 by News Staff

Professor John Terning and Dr. Christopher Verhaaren from the University of California, Davis, have a new candidate for dark matter — a dark monopole...

The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.

Hubble Spots Sodium Chloride on Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Jun 13, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the yellow color visible on portions of the surface of Europa, the second Galilean...

Study: Pterosaurs Had Remarkable Ability to Fly from Birth

Jun 12, 2019 by News Staff

Pterosaurs were winged flying reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, between 210 million and 65 million years ago. Previously, they were thought...

A northern pitcher plant with a trapped salamander. Image credit: M. Alex Smith.

Biologists Find Salamander-Eating Pitcher Plants in Canada

Jun 11, 2019 by News Staff

A team of biologists from the Universities of Guelph and Toronto has discovered that a species of carnivorous plant called the northern pitcher plant (Sarracenia...

The South Pole-Aitken Basin on the lunar far side is one of the largest and oldest impact features in the Solar System. It’s easily seen in the elevation data. The low center is dark blue and purple. Mountains on its edge, remnants of outer rings, are red and yellow. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / University of Arizona.

Mysterious Mass of Material Discovered Beneath Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin

Jun 11, 2019 by News Staff

The South Pole-Aitken basin — the largest crater in the Solar System — is a gigantic impact structure on the far side of the Moon. Data from...

Scientists Find 1.2-Billion-Year-Old Impact Crater Off Coast of Scotland

Jun 10, 2019 by News Staff

A 3,300-foot- (1 km) wide asteroid struck our planet 1.2 billion years ago, according to new research published in the Journal of the Geological Society. An...

Hubble Looks at Explosive Spiral: NGC 4051

Jun 10, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a spectacularly detailed image of a spiral galaxy called NGC 4051. This Hubble image shows the intermediate...

An artist’s reconstruction of Fostoria dhimbangunmal. Image credit: James Kuether.

New Herbivorous Dinosaur Species Identified in Australia: Fostoria dhimbangunmal

Jun 7, 2019 by News Staff

A new species of two-legged iguanodontian dinosaur has been identified from fossils discovered three decades ago in an opal mine in Australia. A paper...

This artist’s illustration depicts a coronal mass ejection, which involves a large-scale expulsion of material, and have frequently been observed on our Sun. Image credit: NNASA / CXC / INAF / Argiroffi et al / S. Wiessinger.

Chandra Detects Huge Coronal Mass Ejection from HR 9024

Jun 6, 2019 by News Staff

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), often associated with solar flares, are the most powerful magnetic phenomena occurring on the Sun. Now, astronomers using...

A large rhyolite flake at the site of Bokol Dora 1, Ethiopia. Image credit: Braun et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1820177116.

Researchers Find 2.6-Million-Year-Old Oldowan Tools in Ethiopia

Jun 5, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has unearthed a collection of 2.6-million-year-old systematically flaked stone tools at the site of Bokol Dora 1 (BD1)...

Collective behavior in a school of Erismatopterus levatus. Image credit: Mizumoto et al, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.0891.

Paleontologists Find Fossilized School of Eocene-Era Fish

Jun 4, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A slab of grayish limestone shale from the Eocene Green River Formation, the United States, caught a school of Erismatopterus levatus, an extinct species...

This artist’s illustration shows two gas giant exoplanets orbiting the young star PDS 70. Image credit: J. Olmsted, STScI.

Astronomers Directly Image Two Protoplanets around PDS 70

Jun 4, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) spectrograph on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have directly imaged two still-forming gas...

This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7773. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. Three filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. Walsh.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies NGC 7773

Jun 3, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7773. This Hubble image shows the barred spiral galaxy...

Hubble captured this view of comet 46P/Wirtanen on December 13, 2018. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Bodewits, Auburn University / J.-Y. Li, Planetary Science Institute.

Hyperactive Comets Contain ‘Ocean-Like’ Water

May 31, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) observed the hyperactive Jupiter-family comet 46P/Wirtanen as it made its closest approach...

An artist’s impression of NGTS-4b and its star. Image credit: Mark Garlick / University of Warwick.

Astronomers Discover ‘Forbidden’ Short-Period Neptune-Sized Exoplanet

May 30, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has discovered a Neptune-sized exoplanet orbiting NGTS-4, a K-dwarf star located 922 light-years from Earth. Named...

New Species of Rat Snake Discovered

May 30, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of scientists has described a cryptic new species of rat snake in the genus Elaphe. The Urartian rat snake (Elaphe urartica) in Armenia....