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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....

An artist’s conception of the HR 858 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Compact System of Three Super-Earths Found around Naked-Eye Star

May 29, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered a compact three-planet system around the sixth-magnitude star...

A view of Mars showing the planet’s northern polar ice cap. Image credit: ISRO / ISSDC / Emily Lakdawalla.

Planetary Scientists Find Ancient Ice Caps beneath Martian North Pole

May 28, 2019 by News Staff

Planetary researchers using data from the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have discovered rich deposits of water...

Archaeologists Find 2,300-Year-Old Bark Shield in England

May 27, 2019 by News Staff

A unique bark shield from the Iron Age has been discovered by a team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester and elsewhere. Archaeologist Adam...

The beer-producing yeast strain EBEgT12 isolated from a vessel from the site of En-Besor, Israel. Image credit: Aouizerat et al, doi: 10.1128/mBio.00388-19.

Researchers Brew Beer with 5,000-Year-Old Yeasts

May 24, 2019 by News Staff

A multidisciplinary team of scientists has successfully isolated several yeast strains from ancient vessels excavated at archaeological sites in Israel....

Microphotograph of Ourasphaira giraldae. Image credit: Loron et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1217-0.

Paleontologists Find One-Billion-Year-Old Fossil Fungi in Canada

May 23, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of paleontologists has discovered 1,000- to 900-million-year-old microfossils of a fungus in estuarine shale of the Grassy Bay Formation...

This composite image of Ultima Thule was compiled from data obtained by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on January 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / Roman Tkachenko.

Ultima Thule: Surprises in Science Results from New Horizons Mission

May 21, 2019 by News Staff

After flying past the dwarf planet Pluto in 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shifted course to Ultima Thule (also known as 2014 MU69), a much smaller...

This artist’s impression shows exocomets orbiting beta Pictoris. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

TESS Detects Exocomets in Beta Pictoris System

May 20, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS) has spotted the long tails of extrasolar comets orbiting the very young star beta Pictoris. This...

This digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed on the ventral surface of Cimex lectularius; from this view you can see the insect’s skin piercing mouthparts it uses to obtain its blood meal, as well as a number of its six jointed legs. Image credit: Janice Harney Carr, CDC.

Bedbugs Arose 115 Million Years Ago, Roamed Earth alongside Dinosaurs

May 17, 2019 by News Staff

Bedbugs are blood-sucking parasites in the family Cimicidae. A multinational research team led by University of Sheffield, the University Museum Bergen...

The Voynich manuscript, folio 67r. Image credit: Beinecke Library, Yale University.

Has Voynich Manuscript Been Decoded? Mysterious Book May Be Written in Proto-Romance Language

May 15, 2019 by News Staff

The Voynich manuscript, sometimes described as the ‘world’s most mysterious text,’ may be written in proto-Romance, a language that arose from a...

The ammonite Puzosia sp. Image credit: Yu et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1821292116.

99-Million-Year-Old Ammonite Found in Burmese Amber

May 14, 2019 by Natali Anderson

An international team of paleontologists has found a piece of amber containing the beautifully preserved ammonite, several marine and land organisms that...

Gao et al present a tomato pan-genome constructed using genome sequences of 725 phylogenetically and geographically representative accessions, revealing 4,873 genes absent from the reference genome. Image credit: Hans Braxmeier.

Scientists Assemble Pan-Genome of Cultivated Tomato and Its Wild Relatives

May 14, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and the U.S. Department of Agriculture- Agricultural Research Service...

The lanternfish has bioluminescent organs and an increased number of rod opsin genes. Image credit: Zuzana Musilová, Charles University.

Deep-Sea Fishes Catch Color with Rods

May 13, 2019 by News Staff

Some deep-sea fishes have developed highly sensitive color vision that could help them determine predator from prey in the dimly-lit depths. The lanternfish...

This artist’s illustration shows what one of the very first galaxies in the Universe might have looked like. Image credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomy Productions.

Universe’s Early Galaxies were Much Brighter than Expected

May 10, 2019 by News Staff

New data from Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes show that in a few specific wavelengths of infrared light, some of the first galaxies to form in the...

Ambopteryx longibrachium. Image credit: Chung-Tat Cheung & Min Wang / Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Tiny Jurassic Dinosaur Had Membranous Wings

May 9, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A previously unknown species of bird-like dinosaur with pterosaur-like wings has been discovered by a team of paleontologists working with the Institute...

The first artist’s illustration shows a key part of the process that created this new black hole, as the two neutron stars spin around each other while merging. The purple material depicts debris from the merger. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M.Weiss.

LIGO and Virgo Observatories Detect Two New Gravitational Waves

May 8, 2019 by News Staff

On April 25 and 26, 2019, NSF’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the European-based Virgo detector registered two new gravitational...

An artist’s rendering of how Suskityrannus hazelae may have looked. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

Small T. rex Relative Found in New Mexico: Suskityrannus hazelae

May 7, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new species of predatory tyrannosauroid dinosaur that lived about 92 million years ago (Cretaceous period) has been identified from fossils found in...

The western yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava), a small passerine bird in the family Motacillidae. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Songbirds Have Unusual Chromosome in Germ Cells: Study

May 7, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered that all songbirds have an additional chromosome in their germ cells — the ‘germline restricted...