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An artist’s impression of ‘Oumuamua as a piece of nearly pure nitrogen ice. Image credit: William Hartmann / Arizona State University.

Oumuamua is Nitrogen-Ice Fragment of Pluto-Like Exoplanet, New Theory Says

Mar 18, 2021 by News Staff

1I/‘Oumuamua, a strange object of extrasolar origin discovered on October 19, 2017 by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, was small, about half as long as a...

An illustration of early Earth, as it would have looked around 4 billion years ago. Image credit: Lucy Entwisle.

Lightning Strikes Played Role in Creating Prebiotic Phosphorus on Early Earth, Study Suggests

Mar 18, 2021 by News Staff

Phosphorus is one of the key elements for life, involved in biomolecules such as DNA, RNA, phospholipids, and adenosine triphosphate. Phosphide minerals...

Transmission electron micrograph showing the general cell morphology of Methylobacterium jeotgali. Image credit: Aslam et al., doi: 10.1099/ijs.0.64625-0.

Previously Unknown Species of Bacterium Found on International Space Station

Mar 17, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Biologists have found four bacterial strains of the Methylobacteriaceae family in surface samples collected from the International Space Station (ISS)...

Understanding the history of the Greenland Ice Sheet is critical for predicting its response to future climate warming and contribution to sea-level rise. Image credit: Rolf Johansson.

Geologists Find Million-Year-Old Plant Fossils Deep Beneath Greenland Ice Sheet

Mar 16, 2021 by News Staff

The deep ice at Camp Century in northwestern Greenland entirely melted at least once within the last million years and was covered with vegetation, including...

The new Dead Sea scroll fragments from the Cave of Horror, the Judean Desert, Israel. Image credit: Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority.

New Dead Sea Scroll Fragments Found in Israel

Mar 16, 2021 by News Staff

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have discovered dozens of parchment fragments of a Biblical scroll, which is written in Greek and...

Life reconstruction of Vilevolodon diplomylos showing a parent and offspring. Image credit: Sarah Shelley.

Jurassic Gliding Mammal Relative Sheds New Light on Evolution of Mammalian Middle Ear

Mar 16, 2021 by News Staff

Paleontologists from the United States and China have examined the middle ear bones (ossicles) of Vilevolodon diplomylos, a gliding haramiyidan that lived...

Life reconstruction of an aristonectine plesiosaur. Image credit: Nobu Tamura, http://spinops.blogspot.com / CC BY-SA 4.0.

New Elasmosaurid Plesiosaur Unearthed in Chile

Mar 15, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of aristonectine elasmosaurid plesiosaur has been described from a partial skeleton found in central Chile. Life reconstruction...

Computer model of the Antikythera Mechanism’s display: in the center, the dome of the Earth, the phase of the Moon and its position in the Zodiac -- then rings for Mercury, Venus, true Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Date, with ‘little sphere’ markers and smaller markers for oppositions. Scale marks and index letters for the synodic cycles of the planets are inscribed on the planet rings. Surrounding these, the Zodiac and the Egyptian Calendar. The true Sun ring has a ‘little golden sphere’ with ‘pointer.’ When the Moon and Sun pointers coincide, the Moon sphere shows black for New Moon; when the pointers are on opposite sides, the Moon sphere shows white for Full Moon. The Head of the Dragon Hand shows the ascending lunar node; the Tail the descending node. Small triangles on the true Sun ring, near the pointer, show wider and narrower eclipse limits. Eclipses are possible if the Dragon Hand is within these limits. When the Moon pointer is before the Head of the Dragon, the Moon is South of the node; after, it is North of the node -- conversely for the descending node. A Date pointer is attached to a narrow date ring, showing the date in the Egyptian Calendar. Image credit: Freeth et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-84310-w.

Scientists Step Closer to Understanding Full Capabilities of Antikythera Mechanism

Mar 15, 2021 by News Staff

A team of researchers from University College London and the Cyprus Institute’s Science and Technology in Archaeology and Culture Research Center has...

A visualization of the Glashow resonance event detected by IceCube. Image credit: IceCube Collaboration.

High-Energy Antineutrino Detection Supports 60-Year-Old Theory

Mar 11, 2021 by News Staff

On December 6, 2016, a high-energy particle called an electron antineutrino hurtled to Earth from outer space at close to the speed of light carrying 6.3...

An attentive oviraptorid theropod dinosaur broods its nest of blue-green eggs while its mate looks on in what is now Jiangxi Province of southern China some 70 million years ago. Image credit: Zhao Chuang.

Paleontologists Find Remains of Oviraptorid Dinosaur and Embryo-Bearing Egg Clutch

Mar 10, 2021 by News Staff

Paleontologists in China have discovered what they say is the first non-avialan dinosaur fossil known to preserve an adult skeleton atop an egg clutch...

Astronomers Discover Sixth Planet in K2-138 Planetary System

Mar 9, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Five sub-Neptunes and one super-Earth exoplanet orbit a moderately bright K-type star called K2-138. An artist’s impression of the six-planet system...

This image shows the head and the body of Elysia marginata, a day after autotomy; the shed body is much heavier (over 80% of the total weight) than the head. Image credit: Sayaka Mitoh.

Sacoglossan Sea Slugs Can Shed, Then Regenerate Their Main Body

Mar 9, 2021 by News Staff

A biological phenomenon called autotomy is the voluntary shedding of a body part. It is common to distantly-related animals such as arthropods, gastropods,...

Massive Exoplanet Candidate Spotted around Vega

Mar 9, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered evidence for a giant planet orbiting Vega, a young star located 25 light-years away in the constellation of Lyra. An artist’s...

This artist’s impression shows how the distant quasar PSO J172.3556+18.7734 and its radio jets may have looked. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Astronomers Discover Most Distant Known Cosmic Jet

Mar 8, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using several ground-based telescopes have spotted the most distant cosmic jet discovered so far. Its source is PSO J172.3556+18.7734, a radio-loud...

Life reconstruction of Tamarro insperatus (adults were 1.5-2 m in length and had a mass of 20 kg). Image credit: Oscar Sanisidro / Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont / Museu de la Conca Dellà.

New Bird-Like Dinosaur Identified in Spain

Mar 8, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of troodontid dinosaur that lived 66 million years ago at the very end of the Cretaceous period has been identified from an isolated...

This Hubble image shows the huge nebula of material cast off by VY Canis Majoris. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Humphreys, University of Minnesota / J. Olmsted, STScI.

VY Canis Majoris is Enshrouded in Giant Dust Clouds, Astronomers Say

Mar 5, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered the reason for the dimming of a red hypergiant star called VY Canis Majoris. This...

The S-type asteroid Itokawa. Image credit: JAXA.

Researchers Find Organic Matter and Water in Sample from Asteroid Itokawa

Mar 5, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has studied both the water and organic contents from a dust particle recovered from the surface of the near-Earth S-type...

Hot Super-Earth Discovered 26 Light-Years Away

Mar 5, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers from the CARMENES (Calar Alto high-Resolution search for M dwarfs with Exoearths with Near-infrared and optical Échelle Spectrographs) consortium...

Nightside of Hot Super-Earth LHS 3844b is Tectonically Active: Study

Mar 4, 2021 by News Staff

LHS 3844b’s hemispheric tectonics is the direct consequence of a significant temperature contrast between its day- and nightside and is absent in the...