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Extremely Rare Sesquizygotic Twins Identified in Australia

Sesquizygosis -- whereby twins are genetically identical to each other with respect to one parent but differ from each other by approximately 50% with respect to the composition of DNA inherited from the other parent -- is a third form of twinning. Genetically, sesquizygosis can be considered to be on a continuum between monozygosis and dizygosis. It probably arises after heterogoneic assortment of two paternal genomes and one maternal genome during the first postzygotic cleavage division. Image credit: Gabbett et al, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1701313.
Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

Twins are traditionally classified as monozygotic (identical) or dizygotic (fraternal). Monozygotic twinning results in genetically identical individuals, whereas dizygotic twins share approximately 50% of their DNA sequence identity, as do full siblings. Sesquizygosity is a third form of twinship, in which individuals share between 50% and 100% of genetic identity. Doctors in Brisbane, Australia have discovered what they say is the world’s second...

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This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Pluto and Charon’s Ancient Craters Indicate Deficit of Very Small Kuiper Belt Objects

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

Collisions between bodies in our Solar System produce impact craters on large objects at a rate that depends on the population of impacting small bodies....

Artist’s impression of Planet Nine. Image credit: Tom Ruen / ESO.

Astronomers Provide New Details about Suspected Nature and Location of Planet Nine

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

The presence of a new planet on the outskirts of the Solar System was proposed by Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in 2016 to explain...

An artist’s impression of record-cold quantum gas of potassium-rubidium molecules. Image credit: Steven Burrows / JILA.

Physicists Create Coldest Quantum Gas of Molecules

Feb 27, 2019 by News Staff

Physicists at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder, have produced...

An artist’s impression of the planetary system around TOI-216. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

TESS Discovers Pair of Warm Giant Exoplanets

Feb 26, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have discovered two ‘warm’ gas giants orbiting a nearby dwarf star. An...

This composite picture combines nine individual images taken with New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), each with an exposure time of 0.025 seconds, just 6 ½ minutes before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Ultima Thule. The image was taken at 12:26 a.m. EST (5:26 a.m. GMT) on January 1, 2019, when the spacecraft was 4,109 miles (6,628 km) from Ultima Thule and 4.1 billion miles (6.6 billion km) from Earth. The angle between the spacecraft, Ultima Thule and the Sun -- known as the ‘phase angle’ - was 33 degrees. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute / National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

New Horizons Beams Back Sharpest-Ever Images of Ultima Thule

Feb 25, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons probe has returned the sharpest images of Ultima Thule to date, taken during the spacecraft’s historic flyby of the Kuiper Belt...

Moros intrepidus. Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez.

Moros intrepidus: New Deer-Sized Species of Tyrannosaur Discovered

Feb 22, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unveiled a remarkable new species of tyrannosauroid dinosaur from the Cretaceous period: a small relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. The...

The Wallace’s giant bee (Megachile pluto). Image credit: Clay Bolt.

Wallace’s Giant Bee: World’s Largest Bee Rediscovered in Indonesia

Feb 22, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A living individual of a bee species feared to be extinct has been found in the Indonesian islands known as the North Moluccas. The Wallace’s giant...

An artist’s concept of Hippocamp. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Olmsted, STScI.

Hippocamp: Seventh Inner Moon of Neptune May Have Broken from Larger Moon

Feb 21, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new study led by SETI Institute astronomers suggests that the recently-discovered moon of Neptune, Hippocamp, is probably an ancient fragment of a much...

Ringed White Dwarf Spotted 145 Light-Years Away

Feb 20, 2019 by News Staff

Professional astronomers and volunteers working with the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project have spotted the oldest and coldest known white...

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Image credit: Byron Dilkes, Danah Divers.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Great White Shark

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from the United States and Europe has successfully sequenced the genome of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)...

Volume rendering showing continuity between sheet and string morphologies in a single specimen. Scale bars - 1 cm. Image credit: El Albani et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1815721116.

Multicellular Life Began 1.5 Billion Years Earlier than Thought

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

Approximately 2.1-billion-year-old fossilized tracks discovered in Gabon suggest the existence of a cluster of single cells that came together to form...

Cassowaries use their casque much in the same way as some other birds use their beaks for heat exchange. Image credit: Lolame.

Cassowary’s Distinctive Helmet Acts as Thermal Radiator

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

The cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is a large, flightless bird that bears a prominent helmet (or casque). The function of the cranial structure has attracted...

An artist’s impression of Orion Source I, a young, massive star about 1,500 light-years away. The blue region -- about 1/3 the way out from the center of the disk -- represents the region where ALMA detected the millimeter-wavelength ‘glow’ from the salts. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Detects Salts around Young Star

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected the chemical fingerprints of sodium chloride (NaCl), potassium...

Mnyamawamtuka moyowamkia in its environmental setting. Image credit: Mark Witton.

New Titanosaurian Dinosaur Unearthed in Tanzania

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Tanzania have found fossil fragments from a new species of giant dinosaur that walked the Earth approximately 100 million years ago...

Gestures of our primate cousins may be more similar to our own language than previously thought. Image credit: Republica.

Chimpanzees’ Gestural Communication Follows Same Laws as Human Language: Study

Feb 14, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, gestures of chimpanzees follow the same mathematical patterns — known...

The south pole of Mars. Image credit: NASA.

Underground Volcanism on Mars May Have Been Active Extremely Recently

Feb 14, 2019 by News Staff

Recent radar observations from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft were interpreted as evidence for melting beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars. Now, a...

Illustration of a plasma jet impact (yellow) generating standing waves at the boundary (blue) of Earth’s magnetic shield (green). Image credit: E. Masongsong, UCLA / M. Archer, QMUL / H. Hietala, UTU.

Earth’s Magnetopause Vibrates Like Giant Drum When Hit by Strong Impulses

Feb 13, 2019 by News Staff

As strong impulses strike the Earth’s magnetopause, the abrupt boundary between the planet’s magnetosphere and the surrounding plasma, ripples travel...

The bright spots near the center of Occator crater are shown in enhanced color in this view from NASA’s Dawn robotic spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI / LPI.

Ceres’ Crust Kept Cryomagma Liquid for Millions of Years, Researchers Say

Feb 13, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Dawn mission recently spotted mysterious bright spots in the center of Occator Crater on the dwarf planet Ceres. According to a new study published...

Abramson et al developed a drug capsule that could be used to deliver oral doses of insulin. Image credit: Felice Frankel.

Microneedle Pill Could Be Used to Deliver Oral Doses of Insulin

Feb 12, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers from the United States, Denmark and Sweden has pioneered a new approach that brings an oral formulation of insulin...

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