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Machu Picchu is Several Decades Older Than Previously Thought

Aug 12, 2021 by News Staff

New research shows that Machu Picchu, an ancient Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, was occupied from about 1420 to 1532 CE, with activity...

New Feathered Dinosaur Species Revealed

Aug 10, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Brazil have unveiled a new species of unenlagiine dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous period. An artist’s...

This composite image features a spectacular set of eight separate concentric rings around a black hole in the V404 Cygni binary system, captured using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The image also contains optical data from the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii that show the stars in the field of view. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Wisconsin-Madison / Heinz et al. / Pan-STARRS.

Astronomers Spot Giant X-Ray Rings around Stellar-Mass Black Hole

Aug 9, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have detected a set of eight X-ray rings around a low-mass black...

Life reconstruction of Thapunngaka shawi. Image credit: Richards et al., doi: 10.1080/02724634.2021.1946068.

Fossil of New Crested Pterosaur Discovered in Australia

Aug 9, 2021 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Australia say they have discovered the fossilized skeletal remains of a new species of flying reptile that lived between 113 and 100...

Spatial distribution of the minting remains in the Guanzhuang foundry’s excavation area: red dots: deposit with clay moulds; green dots: deposits with fragments of finished spade coins. Image credit: Z. Qu / H. Zhao.

World’s Earliest-Known Coin Mint and Spade Coin Discovered in China

Aug 6, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have uncovered 2,640- to 2,550-year-old clay moulds for casting spade coins as well as fragments of finished spade coins at Guanzhuang in...

This artist’s impression shows the warm terrestrial planet L 98-59b. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Five Exoplanets Orbit Nearby Red Dwarf Star

Aug 6, 2021 by Natali Anderson

The L 98-59 planetary system contains two non-transiting planets and three transiting terrestrial planets, one of which is a warm rocky world with half...

Burkesuchus mallingrandensis and a group of Chilesaurus diegosuarezi. Image credit: Gabriel L. Lio / de Anatomía Comparada y Evolución de los Vertebrados (LACEV), Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia.’

Jurassic-Period Crocodile Ancestor Unearthed in Chile

Aug 4, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of small-sized mesoeucrocodylian from the fossilized remains found in the Patagonian mountains...

Rhamphophorus legalovii. Image credit: Poinar & Brown, doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104948.

‘Mammoth Weevil’ Found Preserved in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

Aug 3, 2021 by News Staff

A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar represents a new tribe, genus and species and dates back some 100 million...

Giant Exoplanet Orbits Its Host Star Once Every 1.1 Million Years

Aug 3, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers with the COol Companions ON Ultrawide orbiTS (COCONUTS) program have directly imaged a massive exoplanet orbiting the low-mass red dwarf L...

An artist’s impression of the giant exoplanet Kepler-1704b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Failed Hot Jupiter Found in Wide Orbit around Kepler-1704

Aug 2, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers from the Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT ’EM) Survey have discovered a long-period giant planet circling the 7.4-billion-year-old...

An artist’s impression of Tcc+, a tetraquark composed of two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Image credit: CERN.

CERN Discover New Tetraquark Particle

Aug 2, 2021 by News Staff

The new exotic particle discovered by physicists from the LHCb Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) contains two quarks and two antiquarks....

Sponge-Like Animals May Have Lived in Oceans 890 Million Years Ago

Jul 30, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have found possible sponge body fossils in 890-million-year-old microbial reefs in northwestern Canada. If verified, they may pre-date...

Wilkins et al. observed bright flares of X-ray emissions, produced as gas falls into a supermassive black hole in I Zwicky 1; the flares echoed off of the gas falling into the black hole, and as the flares were subsiding, short flashes of X-rays were seen -- corresponding to the reflection of the flares from the far side of the disk, bent around the black hole by its strong gravitational field. Image credit: Dan Wilkins.

Astronomers Detect Light Echoes Coming from Behind Supermassive Black Hole

Jul 30, 2021 by News Staff

Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuSTAR space telescopes, astronomers have observed X-ray flares emitted from around the supermassive black hole in...

This illustration depicts a collapsing star that is producing two short gamma-ray jets. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / M. Zamani, NOIRLab.

Shortest Supernova-Produced Gamma-Ray Burst Discovered

Jul 28, 2021 by News Staff

Most known supernova-powered gamma-ray bursts are ‘long’ (lasting more than two seconds), but a gamma-ray burst event called GRB 200826A lasted just...

Schematics of the observations of TYC 8998-760-1b using SINFONI on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The background image is captured by the SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope. The small blue box marks the field of view of SINFONI observations targeting TYC 8998-760-1b. Both the host star and TYC 8998-760-1c are outside the field of view. An example of the wavelength-collapsed image is shown in the enlarged blue box, showing negligible contribution from starlight. Image credit: ESO / Bohn et al. / Zhang et al.

Astronomers Detect Carbon-13 in Atmosphere of Young Super-Jupiter

Jul 28, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope have detected the isotopically substituted carbon monoxide, 13CO, in the atmosphere of the young giant exoplanet...

Honeybees begin constructing honeycombs in multiple locations, which they will eventually bridge together. Image credit: Michael Smith / Cornell University.

Honeybees are Skilled Architects, New Research Confirms

Jul 27, 2021 by News Staff

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) are renowned for constructing perfect hexagonal honeycombs, hailed as the pinnacle of biological architecture for its ability...

Display of a candidate WWW→ 3 leptons + neutrinos event; the event is identified by its decay to a muon (red line), two electrons (blue lines) and missing transverse energy (white dashed line). Image credit: CERN.

CERN Physicists Observe Triple W-Boson Production

Jul 27, 2021 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have observed a process called WWW production: the simultaneous creation...

Roth et al. reveal the first evidence for water vapor in the atmosphere of Ganymede, the result of the thermal escape of water vapor from the moon’s icy surface. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / J. daSilva.

Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Ganymede

Jul 26, 2021 by News Staff

Jupiter’s icy satellite Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System. Water ice on its surface is frozen solid in frigid temperatures as low as minus...

A sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) opening the lid of a household waste bin using one of many different opening techniques; this bird holds the lid with the bill and its left foot; a second bird is observing it closely. Image credit: Klump et al., doi: 10.1126/science.abe7808.

Study: Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos Spread Bin-Opening Behavior through Social Learning

Jul 26, 2021 by News Staff

Ornithologists from Germany and Australia have documented the emergence of a cultural adaptation to urban environments — opening of household waste...