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NASA’s Space Launch System carrying the Orion spacecraft launches on the Artemis I flight test from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:47 a.m. EST on November 16, 2022. Image credit: NASA / Joel Kowsky.

NASA’s Orion Spacecraft is on Its Way to the Moon

Nov 16, 2022 by News Staff

Carrying an uncrewed Orion, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) — the most powerful rocket in the world — lifted off today at 1:47 a.m. EST...

An artistic reconstruction of the two new opabiniid-like animals, with Mieridduryn bonniae at the front and the smaller unnamed animal at the back. Image credit: Franz Anthony.

Fossils of Two Bizarre Ordovician Animals Found in Wales

Nov 16, 2022 by News Staff

Two specimens of euarthropods from the Middle Ordovician Castle Bank Biota in Wales, the United Kingdom, have striking similarities to Opabinia, an iconic...

The protostar IRAS 04368+2557, shown in this Webb image, is embedded within LDN 1527, a cloud of material that is feeding its growth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / J. DePasquale, STScI.

Webb Sees Hourglass-Like Nebula around Young Protostar

Nov 16, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) onboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have revealed new details surrounding the dark...

Life reconstruction of a macronarian dinosaur. Image credit: Levi Bernardo / CC BY-SA 3.0.

New Species of Jurassic Sauropod Dinosaur Uncovered in China

Nov 15, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Yuzhoulong qurenensis is one of the earliest-diverging members of the sauropod dinosaur clade Macronaria. Life reconstruction of a macronarian dinosaur....

Ancient inhabitants of the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site in Israel likely used some kind of earth oven that maintained a temperature below 500 degrees Celsius to cook their fish. Image credit: Ella Maru / Tel Aviv University.

Scientists Find Earliest Evidence of Hominins Cooking with Fire

Nov 15, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have found the 780,000-year-old remains of a cooked carp-like fish at the wetland Acheulean site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel. Ancient...

The corner of the newly-discovered temple (left) under excavation and the larger Tempio Grande (right) in Vulci, Italy. Image credit: Mariachiara Franceschini.

2,500-Year-Old Etruscan Temple Discovered in Italy

Nov 14, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a monumental temple in Vulci, an ancient Etruscan city in Italy. The corner of the newly-discovered temple...

A hominin footprint at the Matalascañas site in Spain. Image credit: Mayoral et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-22524-2.

296,000-Year-Old Hominin Footprints Found in Spain

Nov 11, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The possible track-makers are individuals from the Neanderthal lineage, according to new research led by Universidad de Huelva paleoanthropologists. The...

Life reconstruction of Stenoscelida aurantiacus. Image credit: Matheus Fernandes / Universidade Federal de Santa Maria.

New Species of Triassic Crocodile-Like Reptile Identified in Brazil

Nov 9, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered a new fossil reptile that lived during the Late Triassic epoch in southern Brazil. Life reconstruction of Stenoscelida...

The 3,700-year-old ivory comb from Tel Lachish, Israel. Image credit: Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority.

Archaeologists Find 3,700-Year-Old Ivory Comb Inscribed with Canaanite’s Wish to Eradicate Lice

Nov 9, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The small inscribed ivory comb was found at Tel Lachish, a key Canaanite city-state in the 2nd millennium BCE, the second most important city in the Judean...

Cymatioa cooki. Image credit: P. Valentich-Scott & J.H.R. Goddard, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1128.95139.

Fossil Clam Species Found Living Off Southern California

Nov 8, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Cymatioa cooki, a species of small bivalve mollusk previously only known from the Pleistocene period, has been found living intertidally near Santa Barbara,...

TMC-1. Image credit: ESA / Herschel / NASA / JPL-Caltech / R. Hurt, JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Detect Two New Organic Molecules in Interstellar Medium

Nov 7, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the 40-m radio telescope at Yebes Observatory have detected two new complex molecules, butadiynethionyl (HCCCCS) and ethynylbutatrienyliden...

Life reconstruction of the thescelosaurine dinosaur Parksosaurus warreni, a close relative of Nevadadromeus schmitti. Image credit: Steveoc 86 / CC BY-SA 3.0.

New Plant-Eating Dinosaur Species Uncovered in Nevada

Nov 4, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists from the Nevada Science Center, Idaho State University and Montana State University have described a new genus and species of thescelosaurine...

Thismia mantiqueirensis, detail of flower in diagonal view, evidencing the upper disc of the floral tube and perianth lamellae. Image credit: E. Muscat.

New Species of Fairy Lantern Found in Brazilian Rainforest

Nov 3, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Scientists have described a new species of the flowering plant genus Thismia from a forest in the Mantiqueira mountains in southeast Brazil. Thismia mantiqueirensis,...

This Webb image shows the highly-magnified red supergiant candidate Quyllur (white, central circle). Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / Diego et al., arXiv: 2210.06514.

Webb Spots Possible Red Supergiant Star in Early Universe

Nov 2, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Nicknamed Quyllur, the newly-detected red supergiant candidate is so far away that its light has taken 10.7 billion years to reach Earth. This Webb image...

This colorized photo shows American President Theodore Roosevelt standing behind the carcass of a rhinocerous. Image credit: U.S. Library of Congress.

Rhino Horns Have Gradually Decreased in Size over Past Century, Image-Based Study Shows

Nov 2, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Rhinos are among the most charismatic and well-known mammals on Earth, but they face extinction because of human activities. To learn how to save rhinos,...

UV light-induced fluorescence revealing residual color patterns in Pleuronectites laevigatus: (A-B) left valve with broad radial color bands showing continuation of bands after a growth line only under UV light, Upper Muschelkalk, Trochitenkalk Formation, Germany; (C-D) left valve with zigzag pattern, Upper Muschelkalk, Germany; (A, C) specimens under normal light; (B, D) specimens under UV light; note that in adult specimens of the species auricles are often not preserved. Scale bars - 1 cm. Image credit: Klaus Wolkenstein, doi: 10.1111/pala.12625.

240-Million-Year-Old Scallop Shells Glow under Ultraviolet Light

Nov 2, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

University of Bonn researcher Klaus Wolkenstein has examined the fossilized specimens of the Triassic scallop species Pleuronectites laevigatus with preserved...

Several business premises were uncovered in the Byzantine quarter in Ephesus, Turkey. Image credit: OeAW-OeAI / Niki Gail.

Early Byzantine Quarter Unearthed in Ancient City of Ephesus

Nov 1, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences have uncovered the 1,400-year-old ruins of the business and gastronomy district in Ephesus, an ancient...

The Principe scops-owl (Otus bikegila): an adult rufous morph (left) in the typical posture and an adult gray-brown morph (right) in a stress posture, when it raises the ear tufts to increase the efficiency of camouflage. Image credit: Marco N. Correia.

New Species of Scops-Owl Discovered in Africa

Nov 1, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Ornithologists have discovered a new species of the scops-owl genus Otus inhabiting the forests of Príncipe Island, part of the Democratic Republic of...

An artist’s impression of an asteroid that orbits closer to the Sun than Earth’s orbit. Image credit: DOE / FNAL / DECam / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine.

Astronomers Discover Three Large Near-Earth Asteroids

Nov 1, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory have discovered two...