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Early Neolithic jar, circa 6000-5000 BC, from Khramis Didi-Gora in the Republic of Georgia. Note the probable grape cluster motives encircling the mouth of the vessel, and the small base, which would have been inadequate for a free-standing vessel. The latter feature suggests that the jar was once partly or wholly buried underground, like modern qvevris (Georgian, ‘large jars’). This specimen is nearly a meter (3.3 feet) tall and a meter (3.3 feet) broad, with a volume exceeding 80 gallons. Image credit: Mindia Jalabadze / National Museum of Georgia.

Ancient Georgian Pottery Reveals World’s Oldest Wine

Nov 14, 2017 by News Staff

8,000-year-old pottery fragments from two sites in the Republic of Georgia, South Caucasus, have revealed the earliest biomolecular archaeological and...

Artist’s impression of two starburst (star-forming) galaxies beginning to merge in the early Universe. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF.

ALMA Spots Pair of Extremely Rare Hyper-Luminous Starburst Galaxies

Nov 13, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered a pair of astoundingly bright and spectacularly massive galaxies...

Maurolicus muelleri (top) and Maurolicus mucronatus (bottom). Image credit: Fanny de Busserolles, University of Queensland.

Marine Biologists Find New Type of Eye Cell in Deep-Sea Fish

Nov 13, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has found a new photoreceptor type in the eyes of deep-sea pearlsides, which have an unusual visual system adapted...

Juno Beams Back Stunning New Photos of Jupiter

Nov 10, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s Juno orbiter captured a series of beautiful images during its ninth flyby of Jupiter on October 24, 2017. This image of Jupiter’s southern hemisphere...

SN 2014J. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Y. Yang, Texas A&M University & Weizmann Institute of Science.

Hubble Captures Distant Supernova’s Light Echoes

Nov 10, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed an extremely rare cosmic phenomenon, called a ‘light echo,’ in Messier 82, a star-forming galaxy located...

Artist’s impression of a Type II supernova. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STSci.

Supernova Discovery Challenges Theories of How Certain Stars End Their Lives

Nov 9, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers led by Las Cumbres Observatory has found a remarkable object in a nearby galaxy: a star that exploded multiple times...

Artist’s impression of a lagoon at dusk with Durlstodon ensomi (left foreground), Durlstotherium newmani (right and center foreground) and the theropod Nuthetes holding a captured Durlstotherium newmani (center middle distance). Image credit: Mark Witton.

Paleontologists Discover Two Mammals from Early Cretaceous Epoch

Nov 8, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

A group of paleontologists from the University of Portsmouth has discovered two new species of mammals that lived 145 million years ago in what is now...

The Pylos Combat Agate. Image credit: University of Cincinnati.

Archaeologists Find Unique Minoan Sealstone in Greece

Nov 7, 2017 by News Staff

An international group of archaeologists led by the University of Cincinnati has found a Minoan sealstone in the treasure-laden tomb of a Bronze Age Greek...

This artist’s impression shows how the newly-discovered dust belts around Proxima Centauri may look. This sketch is not to scale -- to make Proxima b clearly visible it has been shown further from the star and larger than it is in reality. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Find Two Dust Belts around Proxima Centauri

Nov 5, 2017 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected dust belts around Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our Sun....

Reconstruction of the head of an adult female Decennatherium rex. Image credit: Oscar Sanisidro / Anja Cocoparisienne / Sci-News.com.

Ancient Giraffe Relative Once Roamed Iberian Peninsula

Nov 3, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new large species of giraffid being named Decennatherium rex has been discovered by Dr. Maria Rios from the National Museum of Natural History of Spain...

The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis). Image credit: Andrew Walmsley.

New Great Ape Species Found on Sumatra: Tapanuli Orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis)

Nov 2, 2017 by Natali Anderson

An international team of researchers has identified a new species of orangutan living on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Named the Tapanuli orangutan...

Researchers Sequence Reindeer Genome

Nov 2, 2017 by News Staff

A team of Chinese scientists has successfully sequenced and analyzed the genome of Rangifer tarandus (reindeer), the only fully domesticated species in...

Artist’s impression of the cool red star NGTS-1 above the hot-Jupiter NGTS-1b. Image credit: Mark Garlick, University of Warwick.

Discovery of Hot-Jupiter NGTS-1b Challenges Planet Formation Theories

Nov 1, 2017 by News Staff

Dr. Daniel Bayliss, an astronomer at the University of Warwick, and colleagues has discovered a giant gaseous planet orbiting a small M-dwarf star 600...

Levin et al suggest that we could have more in common with our extraterrestrial neighbors than initially thought. Image credit: Fernando Ribas.

Extraterrestrials May Be More Like Us than We Think, Say Biologists

Nov 1, 2017 by News Staff

In a new study, a team of biologists at the University of Oxford shows how evolutionary theory can be used to make predictions about aliens. According...

Artist’s impression of Matheronodon provincialis. Image credit: Lukas Panzarin.

New Herbivorous Dinosaur Species Discovered: Matheronodon provincialis

Oct 31, 2017 by Natali Anderson

A new species of rhabdodontid dinosaur, named Matheronodon provincialis, has been discovered in southern France. Artist’s impression of Matheronodon...

Using a combination of the Biblical text and an ancient Egyptian text, Professor Humphreys and Dr. Graeme Waddington were able to refine the dates of the Egyptian pharaohs. Image credit: Pete Linforth.

Annular Solar Eclipse of 1207 BC Helps Date Egyptian Pharaohs

Oct 30, 2017 by News Staff

In a paper published on October 1 in the journal Astronomy & Geophysics, independent scholar and astrophysicist Graeme Waddington and University of...

A/2017 U1 (center). Image credit: Paulo Holvorcem & Michael Schwartz, Tenagra Observatories.

Astronomers Spot Interstellar Object in Our Solar System: A/2017 U1

Oct 29, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, astronomers think they’ve spotted an asteroid (or perhaps a comet) in the Solar System that came from interstellar space. A/2017...

This illustration shows Kepler-13Ab that circles very close to its host star, Kepler-13A. In the background is the star’s binary companion, Kepler-13B, and the third member of the multiple-star system is the orange dwarf star Kepler-13C. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI.

Hubble Discovers Titanium Dioxide Snow Falling on Hot Jupiter Kepler-13Ab

Oct 28, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has found a blistering hot-Jupiter exoplanet where it ‘snows’ titanium dioxide, the active ingredient in sunscreen....

Guanches. Image credit: Gran Enciclopedia Virtual de las Islas Canarias.

Ancient DNA Study Confirms North African Origin of Guanches

Oct 27, 2017 by News Staff

The aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, commonly known as Guanches, were genetically most similar to modern North African Berbers, according...