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An artist’s impression of two white dwarfs in the process of merging; depending on the combined mass, the system may explode in a thermonuclear supernova, or coalesce into a single heavy white dwarf, as with WD J0551+4135. Image credit: Mark Garlick / University of Warwick.

Astronomers Discover First Pulsating White Dwarf in Eclipsing Binary System

Mar 17, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers have spotted a pulsating white dwarf star in the binary stellar system SDSS J115219.99+024814.4 (SDSS J1152+0248 for short). An artist’s...

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (round gold objects) emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. The virus shown was isolated from a patient in the U.S. Image credit: NIAID-RML.

New Report Highlights Potential Therapeutic Agents and Vaccines for COVID-19

Mar 16, 2020 by News Staff

Researchers from CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, have released a special report in which they provide an overview of previously published...

Panel 1 from the site of Lacanja Tzeltal, Mexico. Image credit: Golden et al, doi: 10.1080/00934690.2019.1684748.

Archaeologists Unearth Long-Lost Capital of Ancient Maya Kingdom

Mar 13, 2020 by News Staff

Archaeologists excavating the site of Lacanja Tzeltal in Mexico have discovered the ruins of the capital of a kingdom known from Classic period Maya inscriptions...

Oculudentavis khaungraaea. Image credit: Xing et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2068-4.

99-Million-Year-Old Amber Preserves Skull of Hummingbird-Sized Dinosaur

Mar 12, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have found an exceptionally well-preserved and diminutive skull of a previously unknown bird-like dinosaur species in a piece of Cretaceous-period...

An artist’s impression of a trans-Neptunian object. Image credit: NASA / ESA / G. Bacon, STScI.

Astronomers Discover 139 New Trans-Neptunian Objects

Mar 12, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers have released a catalog of 316 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) — minor planets located in the far reaches of the Solar System —...

This illustration shows a night-side view of the exoplanet WASP-76b. To the left of the image, we see the evening border of the exoplanet, where it transitions from day to night. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

VLT Spies Iron Raining on Ultrahot Exoplanet WASP-76b

Mar 11, 2020 by News Staff

WASP-76b, a gas-giant exoplanet located some 640 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces, has a day side where temperatures climb above 2,400 degrees...

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow) isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab. Image credit: NIAID.

COVID-19 Has Median Incubation Period of 5.1 Days: Study

Mar 11, 2020 by News Staff

An analysis of data on infections from the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel human coronavirus that causes the respiratory...

An artist’s impression of a blazar. Image credit: DESY / Science Communication Lab.

Astronomers Discover Most Distant Blazar Yet

Mar 11, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using the Large Binocular Telescope have found a blazar 13 billion light-years from Earth, making it officially the most distant blazar ever...

Scanning electromicrograph of an HIV-infected T cell. Image credit: NIAID.

Second Patient Cured of HIV, Researchers Say

Mar 11, 2020 by News Staff

A study of the ‘London patient’ — the second HIV patient to undergo stem cell transplantation from donors with a HIV-resistant gene — finds...

In shaping the Universe, gravity builds a vast cobweb-like structure of filaments tying galaxies and clusters of galaxies together along invisible bridges hundreds of millions of light-years long. This is known as the cosmic web. Image credit: Burchett et al.

Astronomers Use Slime Mold to Reveal Cosmic Web’s Dark Threads

Mar 11, 2020 by News Staff

Physarum polycephalum, a single-cell organism known as slime mold, builds complex web-like filamentary networks in search of food, always finding near-optimal...

TESS Discovers New Class of Pulsating Star

Mar 10, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a team of professional astronomers and citizen scientists has discovered a star...

An artist’s rendering of two brown dwarfs. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa & Sergio Dieterich, Carnegie Institution for Science.

Astronomers Spot Rare Eclipsing Brown-Dwarf Binary System

Mar 10, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using robotic telescopes at ESO’s newest planet-hunting SPECULOOS (Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars) Observatory in...

New Species of Pitcher Plant Discovered in Philippines

Mar 9, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A team of biologists from the Central Mindanao University has discovered a new endemic species of carnivorous plant in the montane tropical rainforests...

The Chinese red panda (Ailurus styani). Image credit: Yunfang Xiu, Straits (Fuzhou) Giant Panda Research and Exchange Center, China.

DNA Analysis Reveals There Are Two Distinct Species of Red Pandas

Mar 9, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

An analysis of DNA from wild populations of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) has found that there is not just one species but enough genetic differences...

This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA’s Next Mars Rover Gets Official Name: Perseverance

Mar 6, 2020 by News Staff

Perseverance is the latest in a long line of Red Planet rovers to be named by school-age children, from Sojourner in 1997 to the Spirit and Opportunity...

Curiosity captured this panorama of the Martian surface between November 24 and December 1, 2019. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Captures 1.8-Billion-Pixel Panorama of Martian Surface

Mar 5, 2020 by News Staff

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has captured its highest-resolution panorama (high-resolution file, 2.43 GB) yet of the Martian surface. The new panorama...

A simulation of the large-scale structure of the Universe with filaments of dark matter in blue and places of galaxy formation in yellow. Image credit: Zarija Lukic / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

New Candidate Particle for Dark Matter: D-Star Hexaquark

Mar 4, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Dark matter is the mysterious substance that makes up roughly a quarter of the Universe. There is strong indirect evidence for its existence from measurements...

The structure of our Milky Way Galaxy with its warped Galactic disk, where the majority of its hundreds of billions of stars reside. Data from ESA’s Gaia spacecraft recently proved that the disk’s warp is precessing, essentially moving around similarly to a wobbling spinning top. The speed of the warp’s rotation is so high that it must have been caused by a rather powerful event, astronomers believe, perhaps an ongoing collision with another, smaller, galaxy which sends ripples through the disk like a rock thrown into water. Image credit: Stefan Payne-Wardenaar / NASA / JPL-Caltech / ESA.

Milky Way’s Warp Caused by Recent or Ongoing Encounter with Satellite Galaxy

Mar 3, 2020 by News Staff

Data from ESA’s Gaia star-mapping satellite show that the warped disk of our Milky Way Galaxy precesses, or wobbles, similarly to the motion of a spinning...

Hypacrosaurus stebingeri chondrocyte. Image credit: Bailleul et al, doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwz206.

Scientists Find Chemical Markers of DNA in Calcified Cartilage of Duck-Billed Dinosaur

Mar 3, 2020 by News Staff

In the 1980s, paleontologists found a dinosaur nesting ground with dozens of nestlings in northern Montana and identified them as Hypacrosaurus stebingeri,...