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A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Image credit: John Gurche / Mark Thiessen / National Geographic.

Homo naledi Had Small but Surprisingly Complex Brain

May 16, 2018 by News Staff

A species of extinct hominin called Homo naledi was discovered in 2013 in a remote cave chamber of the Rising Star cave system in South Africa. This species...

Artist’s illustration of Jupiter and Europa with NASA’s Galileo spacecraft after its pass through a plume erupting from Europa’s surface. A new computer simulation gives us an idea of how the magnetic field interacted with a plume. The magnetic field lines (depicted in blue) show how the plume interacts with the ambient flow of Jovian plasma. The red colors on the lines show more dense areas of plasma. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Michigan.

Archival Data from NASA’s Galileo Mission Yield New Evidence of Water Plumes on Europa

May 15, 2018 by News Staff

A new analysis of data collected by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in 1997 has found strong evidence that the underground ocean of Jupiter’s moon Europa...

Artistic impression of a Multiverse. Image credit: Jaime Salcido / EAGLE Collaboration.

Multiverse Might Not Be as Inhospitable to Life as Previously Thought

May 15, 2018 by News Staff

Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbor life, are burning issues in modern cosmology....

An artist’s impression of Magyarosuchus fitosi. Image credit: Marton Szabo.

Magyarosuchus fitosi: 180 Million-Year-Old Fossil is ‘Missing Link’ in Crocodile Evolution

May 14, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered a fossil of a 180-million-year-old crocodyliform that they say is a long-sought missing link in the evolution of some ancient...

NGC 1032. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Space Telescope Spies Spiral Galaxy Edge-On

May 14, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 1032, a spiral galaxy seen almost edge-on. NGC 1032. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble. NGC...

A life-like reconstruction of Llanocetus denticrenatus. Image credit: Carl Buell.

Earliest ‘Baleen Whales’ Had Large Teeth and Gums

May 11, 2018 by News Staff

The discovery of Llanocetus denticrenatus — an ancient whale species that swam in Antarctic waters 34 million years ago, during a period called the...

3,250-year-old cuneiform tablets were found inside a clay vessel at the archaeological site of Bassetki in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Image credit: Peter Pfälzner, University of Tübingen.

Assyrian Clay Tablets Found in Iraq Reveal Location of Lost Ancient City of Mardama

May 11, 2018 by News Staff

A team of archaeologists and philologists from the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg, Germany, has identified the location of the ancient royal...

Our planet is surrounded by the magnetosphere, shown here in blue. As charged particles from the Sun flow around the Earth’s magnetosphere, it forms the magnetosheath, shown in yellow. Image credit: Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA’s MMS Mission Discovers New Magnetic Process in Earth’s Magnetosheath Region

May 10, 2018 by News Staff

Earth is surrounded by a protective magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, which deflects a supersonic stream of charged particles from the Sun, known...

This artist’s impression shows 2004 EW95, the first carbon-rich asteroid confirmed to exist in the Kuiper Belt and a relic of the primordial Solar System. 2004 EW95 likely formed in the main asteroid belt and has been flung billions of miles from its origin to its current home in the Kuiper Belt. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Find First Carbon-Rich Asteroid in Kuiper Belt: 2004 EW95

May 9, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has found that a small Kuiper Belt object called 2004 EW95 is a carbonaceous (carbon-rich) asteroid — the first...

Gravity of Venus and Jupiter Elongates Earth’s Orbit Every 405,000 Years

May 8, 2018 by News Staff

A research team led by Rutgers University’s Professor Dennis Kent has documented a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000...

An archaic hominin. Image credit: Ninara / CC BY 2.0.

Archaic Hominins Arrived in Philippines as Early as 700,000 Years Ago

May 7, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has unearthed 57 stone tools and butchered animal bones at Kalinga in the Cagayan Valley of northern Luzon, the largest...

The United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off with NASA’s InSight spacecraft, seen through a thick fog blanketing Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Image credit: NASA.

NASA’s InSight Mission Launches to Study Mars’ Interior

May 5, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars InSight mission successfully launched today at 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:05 a.m. PDT) from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California,...

Professor Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory on Origin of Universe

May 3, 2018 by News Staff

Professor Stephen Hawking’s theory about the Big Bang, which he worked on in collaboration with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven’s Professor Thomas Hertog,...

An artist’s impression of WASP-107b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Helium Detected in Atmosphere of Exoplanet for First Time

May 3, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has detected helium — the second-most abundant element in the Universe after hydrogen — in the atmosphere...

This new study is the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of adopting low-risk lifestyle factors on life expectancy in the U.S. Image credit: Matan Ray Vizel.

Five Healthy Lifestyle Habits Can Extend Life by 12-14 Years

May 2, 2018 by News Staff

Living a healthy lifestyle — eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, keeping a healthy body weight, not drinking too much alcohol, and not smoking...

Earth’s magnetic field connects the North Pole (orange lines) with the South Pole (blue lines) in this NASA-created image. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Earth’s Magnetic Field is Not in Early Stage of Reversal, Says Study

May 1, 2018 by News Staff

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field has been dropping for the last two centuries, at a rate that some researchers suspect may cause the field to...

Physicists Entangle Two Macroscopic-Scale Objects

Apr 30, 2018 by News Staff

Entanglement — an intriguing phenomenon in which two distant objects can manifest correlations, even if they are far away from each other —...

Meta-Analysis Identifies 30 New Genetic Risk Factors for Major Depression

Apr 30, 2018 by News Staff

A new genome-wide association meta-analysis has identified 44 genomic variants (loci) that have a significant association with major depression. Of these...

Oxford researchers Katerina Johnson and Kevin Foster argue that understanding why gut microbiome influences behavior requires a focus on microbial ecology and local effects within the host. Image credit: Open Clipart-Vectors.

Does Gut Microbiota Manipulate Our Minds?

Apr 30, 2018 by News Staff

A duo of scientists at the University of Oxford, UK, has proposed an evolutionary framework to understand why our gut microbiota affects the brain and...