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153,000-Year-Old Homo sapiens Footprint Discovered in South Africa

The 153,000-year-old footprint, lightly ringed with chalk, in the Garden Route National Park, South Africa; it appears long and narrow because the trackmaker dragged their heel. Image credit: Charles Helm.
May 26, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

The 153,000-year-old footprint, which was found in the Garden Route National Park, a national park in the Garden Route region of the South African Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces, is the oldest footprint thus far attributed to our species, Homo sapiens. The 153,000-year-old footprint, lightly ringed with chalk, in the Garden Route National Park, South Africa; it appears long and narrow because the trackmaker dragged their heel. Image credit:...

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An artist’s impression of the TOI-2096 planetary system. Image credit: Lionel J. Garcia / University of Liège.

Astronomers Discover Two Large Exoplanets around Nearby Red Dwarf

May 25, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered and validated a...

Live specimen of Sturisoma reisi from Guaporé River basin. Image credit: Willian Ohara.

Bizarre New Species of Catfish Discovered in South America

May 24, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Researchers have described a new species of the fish genus Sturisoma from Madeira River basin in Bolivia and Brazil. Live specimen of Sturisoma reisi from...

An artist’s impression of Quaoar and its two rings. Quaoar’s moon Weywot is shown on the left. Image credit: ESA / Sci.News.

Astronomers Discover Second Ring around Quaoar

May 23, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Quaoar is a classical trans-Neptunian object with an equivalent diameter of 1,100 km. An artist’s impression of Quaoar and its two rings. Quaoar’s...

Inostrancevia with its dicynodont prey, scaring off the much smaller African species Cyonosaurus. Image credit: Matt Celeskey.

Saber-Toothed Predator Connects Permian Northern and Southern Hemisphere Faunas

May 22, 2023 by News Staff

Inostrancevia was a tiger-sized, saber-toothed gorgonopsian that lived on the supercontinent Pangea during the Permian period, approximately 252 million...

Life reconstruction of Protathlitis cinctorrensis. Image credit: Oscar Sanisidro / Grup Guix.

Paleontologists Discover New Species of Spinosaurid Dinosaur

May 19, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of spinosaurid dinosaur being named Protathlitis cinctorrensis has been discovered by Dr. Andrés Santos-Cubedo from the Universitat...

An artist’s impression of the exo-Earth LP 791-18d. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Chris Smith, KRBwyle.

Volcano-Covered Terrestrial Exoplanet Found Orbiting Nearby Star

May 19, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The newly-discovered planet has a radius of 1.03 Earth radii and a temperature between 27 and 127 degrees Celsius (81-261 degrees Fahrenheit), with the...

Stelladens mysteriosus. Image credit: Nick Longrich.

Cretaceous-Period Mosasaur Had Unique ‘Screwdriver Teeth’

May 18, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described an unusual new species of mosasaur based on a fossilized partial jaw and associated tooth crowns from phosphatic deposits...

Oblique aerial picture of a desert kite in Jordan. Image credit: Globalkites Project.

Neolithic Engravings are Oldest Architectural Plans of Humanmade Mega-Structures

May 18, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Two prehistoric engravings in Jordan and Saudi Arabia depict ‘desert kites’ — humanmade mega-traps that are dated to at least 9,000 years ago...

Life reconstruction of Prenocephale prenes, a distant relative of Platytholus clemensi. Image credit: Antonin Jury / CC BY-SA 4.0.

New Species of Dome-Headed Dinosaur Identified in Montana

May 16, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of pachycephalosaurid dinosaur has been described from a partial skull found in Montana, the United States. Life reconstruction...

This artist’s concept of shows the main-belt comet 238P/Read sublimating -- its water ice vaporizing as its orbit approaches the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA.

Webb Detects Water Vapor around Main-Belt Comet 238P/Read

May 16, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The new observations from the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope show that the main-belt comet 238P/Read...

Life reconstruction of the eurypterid Archopterus anjiensis. Image credit: Dinghua Yang.

Earliest Sea Scorpion from China

May 15, 2023 by Simon Braddy

Archopterus anjiensis, a new 445-million-year-old fossil sea scorpion, from the Chinese Zhejiang Province, is the oldest sea scorpion known from China. Life...

Inexpensive and easy to build, data collecting balloons capture infrasound signals in the Earth’s stratosphere. Image credit: NASA.

Enigmatic Infrasound Signals Detected in Earth’s Stratosphere

May 12, 2023 by News Staff

Low frequency sounds can travel vast distances across our planet, carrying information about the events that generated them as well as the medium through...

The human pangenome contains 47 phased, diploid assemblies from a cohort of genetically diverse individuals. Image credit: National Human Genome Research Institute.

Researchers Release First Draft of Human Pangenome Reference

May 11, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists with the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium have released a new high-quality collection of reference human genome sequences that includes...

This artist’s concept depicts the mini-Neptune exoplanet Gliese 1214b. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt, IPAC.

Webb Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Gliese 1214b

May 11, 2023 by News Staff

Gliese 1214b is a so-called mini-Neptune, a smaller, denser version of Neptune that consists of a rocky core surrounded by a thick blanket of gas. This...

An artist’s impression of the Kimmeridge Clay pliosaur. Image credit: Megan Jacobs, University of Portsmouth.

Fossils of Gigantic Pliosaur Uncovered in England

May 10, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Paleontologists have unearthed four cervical vertebrae of Jurassic pliosaurid in the Kimmeridge Clay Formation near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England. The...

Reconstruction of the living bar-tailed trogon (Apaloderma vittatum) in the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum.

Eocene-Period Trogon Already Had Heterodactyl Feet

May 8, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Trogons (Trogoniformes) are the only group of birds with a heterodactyl foot, in which the second toe is permanently reversed. Reconstruction of the living...

Reconstruction of the Castle Bank community; sponge in foreground is 2 cm tall. Image credit: Botting et al., doi: 10.1038/s41559-023-02038-4.

Ordovician-Period Fossil Site Discovered in Wales

May 3, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

The highly-diverse Middle Ordovician fossil site at Castle Bank, Wales, is directly comparable with the famous Burgess Shale and Chengjiang biotas in paleoenvironment...

An artist’s impression of the early Earth. Image credit: NASA.

Energetic Particles from Young Sun May Have Kickstarted Life on Early Earth

May 2, 2023 by News Staff

Life most likely started during the Hadean Eon (4.5 to 4 billion years ago). However, the environmental conditions which contributed to the complexity...

An artist’s reconstruction of two Amphimachairodus hezhengensis defending their prey (Hezhengia bohlini) from two Dinocrocuta gigantea. Image credit: Oscar Sanisidro.

Paleontologists Identify New Species of Saber-Toothed Cat

May 1, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The newly-identified species — the earliest and most primitive member of the saber-toothed cat genus Amphimachairodus — had craniodental adaptations...

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