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Pluto’s first official surface-feature names are marked on this map, compiled from images and data gathered by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its flight through the Pluto system in 2015. Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI / Ross Beyer.

Pluto’s Surface Features Get Official Names

Sep 7, 2017 by News Staff

The International Astronomical Union (IAU), the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features, has officially...

‘Vampires’ May Have Been Real People with Erythropoietic Protoporphyria, Researchers Say

Sep 7, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Barry Paw of the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, has identified a genetic...

An X9.3-class solar flare flashes in the middle of the Sun on September 6, 2017. This image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory at 11:58:42 UTC and shows light in the 304 angstrom wavelength. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / SDO.

NASA’s Sun Watching Observatory Sees Two Powerful Solar Flares

Sep 7, 2017 by Sergio Prostak

On September 6, 2017, an active region on the Sun released two X-class solar flares, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). An X9.3-class...

Zika Virus Kills Glioblastoma Stem Cells, New Research Shows

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

In a research paper published this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, scientists report that Zika virus could be used to target and kill brain...

Mostafavi et al found a drop in some harmful genetic mutations in longer-lived people. Image credit: Darryl Leja, NHGRI / CC BY 2.0.

Natural Selection is Still Happening in Modern Human Populations, Major Genetic Study Finds

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

Genetic variants linked to Alzheimer’s disease and heavy smoking are less frequent in people with longer lifespans, suggesting that natural selection...

Zeolitic ice (left) and aeroice (right) are illustrated: their structure can be regarded as combinations of a couple of polyhedral building blocks. In molecular scale, each polygonal face of the polyhedra is made of water molecules (left bottom); yellow lines are hydrogen bonds. Image credit: Masakazu Matsumoto / CC BY 2.0.

Scientists Predict Existence of Ultralow-Density Ices: ‘Aeroices’

Sep 6, 2017 by News Staff

A research team at Okayama University in Japan has theoretically predicted a new class of ice phases, called aeroices, likely the most stable solid phases...

Life restoration of the Upper Cretaceous plesiosaur Morturneria seymourensis. Image credit: Texas Tech University.

Antarctic Plesiosaur Filtered Food Like Modern Baleen Whales

Sep 4, 2017 by News Staff

In 1984, Texas Tech University paleontologists Sankar Chatterjee and Bryan Small unearthed the fossilized skull of a previously unknown marine reptile...

Aepyornithomimus tugrikinensis. Image credit: Masato Hattori.

New Ostrich-Like Dinosaur Discovered in Mongolia: Aepyornithomimus tugrikinensis

Sep 4, 2017 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists have found fossil fragments from a new species of ornithomimosaur (ostrich-mimic dinosaur) that walked the Earth between 84 and 72 million...

The Trachilos footprints were discovered by Dr. Gerard Gierlinski, a paleontologist at the Polish Geological Institute, by chance when he was on holiday on Crete in 2002. Dr. Gierlinski identified the footprints as those of a mammal. In 2010, he returned to the site together with Dr. Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, a Polish paleontologist at Uppsala University, to study the footprints in detail. Together they came to the conclusion that the footprints were made by hominins. Image credit: Andrzej Boczarowski.

5.6-Million-Year-Old Hominin-Like Footprints in Crete Challenge Theories of Human Evolution

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers have found late Miocene footprints — which show hominin-like characteristics — near the village of Trachilos, west of Kissamos,...

This artist’s concept allows us to imagine what it would be like to stand on the surface of TRAPPIST-1f. Because this planet is thought to be tidally locked to its star, meaning the same face of the planet is always pointed at the star, there would be a region called the terminator that perpetually divides day and night. If the night side is icy, the day side might give way to liquid water in the area where sufficient starlight hits the surface. One of the unusual features of TRAPPIST-1 planets is how close they are to each other -- so close that other planets could be visible in the sky from the surface of each one. In this view, the planets in the sky correspond to TRAPPIST1e (top left crescent), d (middle crescent) and c (bright dot to the lower right of the crescents). TRAPPIST-1e would appear about the same size as the Moon and TRAPPIST1-c is on the far side of the star. The star itself, an ultra-cool dwarf, would appear about three times larger than our own Sun does in Earth’s skies. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Catlech.

TRAPPIST-1’s Outer Planets May Harbor Water, New Study Finds

Sep 1, 2017 by News Staff

In a research paper to appear in the Astronomical Journal (arXiv.org preprint), astronomers from MIT, the Geneva Observatory and elsewhere report that...

Reconstruction of the ancient toothed whale Janjucetus. Image credit: Carl Buell.

Archaic Whales were Ferocious Predators, New Research Shows

Aug 31, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

The teeth of archaic whales were as sharp as those of terrestrial predators, and thus were capable of capturing and processing prey, according to new research...

Astronomers Detect Methylidynium in Distant Star-Forming Galaxies

Aug 31, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of CH+ — an ion of the CH molecule known as methylidynium to chemists — in distant...

The French Frigates from Voyage de La Pérouse, by Louis Antoine Milet-Mureau. Image credit: State Library of New South Wales.

Australian Anthropologist Finds Clue to Fate of Famous French Explorer Jean Francois La Perouse

Aug 30, 2017 by News Staff

Australian National University anthropologist Garrick Hitchcock has stumbled across a clue to resolving one of the most enduring mysteries of Pacific history...

Astronomers Measure Magnetic Field of Far-Off Galaxy

Aug 30, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has measured the magnetic field of a star-forming galaxy nearly 4.6 billion light-years away. An image obtained using...

Smooth-Coated Otters Can Learn How to Solve Puzzles by Copying Each Other, Research Shows

Aug 30, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers in the UK created a series of puzzles baited with food, and found smooth-coated otters (Lutrogale perspicillata) watched and copied...

Life reconstruction of Lagenanectes richterae. Image credit: Frederik Spindler.

Meet Lagenanectes richterae, One of Oldest Known Elasmosaurs

Aug 29, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a study published Friday in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, paleontologists report the discovery of a partially-preserved skeleton of one of...

Bizarre New Species of Frog Discovered in India: Nasikabatrachus bhupathi

Aug 28, 2017 by Natali Anderson

Herpetologists are claiming they have discovered a new species of purple frog living in the Western Ghats, India. The Bhupathy’s purple frog (Nasikabatrachus...

Oxo Crater is the second-brightest feature on Ceres. Only Occator’s central area is brighter. Oxo lies near the 0 degree meridian that defines the edge of many Ceres maps, making this small feature easy to overlook. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image in its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of 385 km from the surface of Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI.

Crater Slope Avalanches Reveal Ceres’ Surface Water Ice

Aug 25, 2017 by James Romero

Surface water ice found within a brilliantly bright crater on the dwarf planet Ceres is being exposed by avalanches reprocessing impact deposits in just...

Plimpton 322, a 3,700-year-old Babylonian tablet held in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York.

Mathematicians Crack Mystery of Babylonian Clay Tablet ‘Plimpton 322’

Aug 25, 2017 by News Staff

Plimpton 322, the most famous of Old Babylonian tablets (1900-1600 BC), is the world’s oldest trigonometric table, possibly used by Babylonian scholars...