Featured News | Sci.News

Cretaceous ‘Four-Limbed Snake’ Turns Out To Be Long-Bodied Lizard

Nov 18, 2021 by News Staff

The origin of snakes remains one of the most contentious evolutionary transitions in vertebrate evolution. The discovery of snake fossils with well-formed...

A 40-million-year-old cone of Pinus cembrifolia in a piece of Eocene Baltic amber. Image credit: George Poinar Jr., Oregon State University.

Germinating Pine Cone Found Encased in Baltic Amber

Nov 17, 2021 by News Staff

Seed germination — a crucial stage in the development of all plants — normally occurs in the soil after the seed has fallen from the mother...

Reconstruction of Mawsonia sp. roaming in the brackish or fresh water costal environment of Texas during the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous epoch. Image credit: Zubin Erik Dutta.

Fossils of Cretaceous-Period Coelacanth Discovered in Texas

Nov 16, 2021 by Sergio Prostak

The fossils are estimated to be around 96 million years old and belong to the first Cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth from North America. Reconstruction...

Zhang et al. found that drinking coffee and tea separately or in combination were associated with lower risk of stroke and dementia; intake of coffee alone or in combination with tea was associated with lower risk of poststroke dementia. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Study: Coffee and Tea Consumption Lowers Stroke and Dementia Risk

Nov 16, 2021 by News Staff

In a large prospective cohort study published today in the journal PLoS Medicine, a team of researchers from Tianjin Medical University and Yale University...

The West Norfolk hoard contains 131 gold coins and four other gold objects from the Anglo-Saxon period. Image credit: British Museum.

Large Hoard of 1,400-Year-Old Gold Coins Unearthed in England

Nov 16, 2021 by News Staff

The West Norfolk hoard, discovered by an anonymous metal detectorist, contains a total of 131 gold coins, most of which are Frankish tremisse. The West...

Earth’s Quasi-Satellite Kamooalewa Could Be Fragment of the Moon

Nov 12, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Using the Large Binocular Telescope and the Lowell Discovery Telescope, astronomers have conducted a comprehensive physical characterization of the near-Earth...

Tang Dynasty mural commemorating the victory of General Zhang Yichao over the Tibetans in 848 CE, from Mogao cave 156.

Volcanic Eruptions Contributed to Repeated Collapse of Ancient Chinese Dynasties, Says New Study

Nov 12, 2021 by News Staff

One or more volcanic eruptions preceded the majority (62 of 68) of dynastic collapses in China over the past 2,000 years, according to new research led...

This artist’s impression shows NGC 1850 BH1 and a massive star orbiting it. The distortion of the star’s shape is due to the strong gravitational force exerted by the black hole. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Detect Stellar-Mass Black Hole in Large Magellanic Cloud

Nov 12, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope have discovered a low-mass black hole in the...

Paleontologists Unearth New Species of Iguanodontian Dinosaur

Nov 11, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of iguanodontian dinosaur has come to light in Isle of Wight rocks dating to the Lower Cretaceous epoch. Reconstruction of the...

Graphical table of all gravitational wave events discovered from 2015 through the end of LIGO/Virgo’s third observing run. The table includes the gravitational event name, the type of binary component (black hole, neutron star, or uncertain), the masses of the primary and secondary, and the mass of the final merged object. Image credit: LIGO / Virgo / KAGRA / C. Knox / H. Middleton.

Astrophysicists Detect 35 New Gravitational-Wave Events

Nov 10, 2021 by News Staff

Astrophysicists from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration have detected a further 35 gravitational waves since the last catalog release in October 2020,...

New Herbivorous Dinosaur Species Identified in Greenland

Nov 9, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of plateosaurid sauropodomorph dinosaur has been identified from two fossilized skulls found in Jameson Land, a peninsula in eastern...

The well-preserved ‘slaves’ room’ discovered in Villa Giuliana near the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, Italy. Image credit: Parco Archeologico di Pompei / Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage, Cultural Activities and Tourism.

Archaeologists Unearth Slave Family’s Room in Ancient Pompeii

Nov 8, 2021 by News Staff

The exceptionally well-preserved room in Civita Giuliana, a suburban Roman villa in the ancient city of Pompeii, contains three beds, a chamber pot, amphorae,...

This artist’s impression shows NGP-190387, a dusty star-forming galaxy that is so far away its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ALMA Detects Fluorine in Distant Star-Forming Galaxy

Nov 8, 2021 by News Staff

Fluorine is one of the most interesting elements for nuclear and stellar astrophysics. Fluorine abundance was first measured for stars other than the Sun...

A reconstruction of Homo naledi’s head by paleoartist John Gurche, who spent some 700 hours recreating the head from bone scans. The find was announced by the University of the Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society and the South African National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife. Image credit: John Gurche / Mark Thiessen / National Geographic.

Paleoanthropologists Find Fossil Remains of Immature Homo naledi

Nov 5, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists has discovered a partial skull and teeth from an immature individual of Homo naledi, a recently-discovered...

A proton-proton collision event with six muons (red lines) produced in the decays of three J/ψ particles. Image credit: CMS / CERN.

CERN Physicists Observe Triple J-psi Meson Production

Nov 4, 2021 by News Staff

Physicists from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have observed three J/ψ particles emerging from...

This artist’s conception shows the dust continuum and molecular lines of carbon monoxide and water seen in the pair of galaxies known as SPT0311-58. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / S. Dagnello, NRAO.

ALMA Detects Water and Carbon Monoxide in Distant Star-Forming Galaxy

Nov 3, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected water and carbon monoxide molecules in a larger member of SPT-S...

The Inti tanager (Heliothraupis oneilli). Image credit: Louisiana State University / Lane et al., doi: 10.1093/ornithology/ukab059.

Inti Tanager: Colorful New Species of Bird Discovered in South America

Nov 3, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Ornithologists have discovered a new genus and species of tanager on the lower slopes of the Andes in southeastern Peru and western Bolivia. The Inti tanager...

Life restoration of Nochelaspis maeandrine. Image credit: Dinghua Yang.

Early Devonian Fish Had Triangular Head Shield

Nov 1, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleoichthyologists in China have re-described Nochelaspis maeandrine, a species of large-sized eugaleaspiform fish that lived 415 million years ago (Devonian...

An artist’s impression of the sub-Neptune TOI-2285b and its parent star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Temperate Sub-Neptune Found Orbiting Nearby Red Dwarf

Nov 1, 2021 by Natali Anderson

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