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An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

High-Oxygen Exoplanetary Atmospheres More Common than Thought, Study Suggests

Dec 30, 2019 by The Conversation

The existence of habitable alien worlds has been a mainstay of popular culture for more than a century. In the 19th century, astronomers believed that...

An artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

TESS Discovers Two New Hot Jupiters

Dec 27, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and several ground-based telescopes, astronomers have observed the transits of two hot-Jupiter...

An artist’s impression of HD 213885b and its host star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Hot Super-Earth and Exo-Neptune Found Orbiting Sun-Like Star

Dec 26, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and three ground-based spectrographs, astronomers have discovered an ultra-short-period...

An artist’s impression of an adult and a juvenile Dendromaia unamakiensis. Image credit: Henry Sharpe.

305-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shows Parent Caring for Its Offspring

Dec 24, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A Carboniferous-period fossil found in Nova Scotia, Canada, shows an ancient creature called a varanopid synapsid (family Varanopidae) caring for its young. An...

An artist’s depiction of the ornithopod dinosaur Weewarrasaurus pobeni tending its nest. Image credit: University of New England.

Paleontologists Uncover Fossilized Remains of Baby Ornithopod Dinosaurs in Australia

Dec 23, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the 100-million-year-old (Cretaceous period) fossilized bones of perinatal non-iguanodontian ornithopods in the Griman Creek...

An artist’s impression of the warm Jupiter TOI-677b and its host star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

TESS Discovers New Warm Jupiter

Dec 23, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of astronomers has discovered a warm giant exoplanet orbiting the bright star TOI-677. An artist’s impression of the warm Jupiter...

Illustration of Isityumzi mlomomde (lower right) and other Late Devonian freshwater ecosystem creatures including the early tetrapod Unzantsia. Image credit: Maggie Newman.

365-Million-Year-Old Lungfish Unearthed in South Africa

Dec 23, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of lungfish that lived approximately 365 million years ago (Famennian stage of the Late Devonian period) has been identified from...

This illustration depicts Kepler-51 and its three giant planets. Image credit: NASA / ESA / L. Hustak, J. Olmsted, D. Player & F. Summers, STScI.

Kepler-51 is Home to Three Super-Puff Exoplanets

Dec 20, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Kepler-51 is a 500-million-year-old G-type star located 2,615 light-years away in the constellation of Cygnus. New observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble...

This illustration depicts a gas halo surrounding a quasar in the early Universe. The quasar, in orange, has two powerful jets and a supermassive black hole at its center, which is surrounded by a dusty disk. The halo of glowing hydrogen is represented in blue. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

VLT Spots Huge Halos of Cool Hydrogen around Active Galaxies in Early Universe

Dec 20, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have spotted enormous hydrogen halos around 12 quasars — a type of active galaxy which shines...

This is an artist's reconstruction of Homo erectus. Image credit: Yale University.

Last Population of Homo erectus Survived in Central Java until 108,000 Years Ago

Dec 20, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has pinpointed the first comprehensive age for the last known occurrence of the early hominin species Homo erectus. This...

World’s Oldest Fossil Forest Unearthed

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the extensive root system of 386-million-year-old (Devonian period) primitive trees in a sandstone quarry near Cairo, New...

The blue-petal water lily (Nymphaea colorata) in the Botanischen Garten, Berlin, Germany. Image credit: Rüdiger Kratz / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Water Lily Genome Sheds Light on Early Evolution of Flowering Plants

Dec 19, 2019 by Natali Anderson

An international team of researchers has successfully sequenced and analyzed the genome of the blue-petal water lily (Nymphaea colorata), a plant species...

An artist’s reconstruction of Lola, a woman who chewed the Syltholm birch pitch. Image credit: Tom Björklund.

Researchers Extract and Sequence Human DNA from 5,700-Year-Old ‘Chewing Gum’

Dec 18, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of scientists has successfully sequenced ancient DNA extracted from a 5,700-year-old piece of chewed birch pitch from southern Denmark....

New Species of Bobtail Squid Discovered

Dec 17, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Marine biologists have discovered a new species of the bobtail squid genus Euprymna in the waters of Japan’s Ryukyu archipelago, a region known for its...

Mesophthirus engeli nymphs crawled and fed on dinosaur feathers. Image credit: Gao et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-13516-4.

Cretaceous Feathered Dinosaurs Suffered from Lice

Dec 16, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Paleontologists have found tiny nymphs of a previously unknown ancient insect species trapped in two pieces of 99-million-year-old (mid-Cretaceous period)...

An artist’s impression of the super-Earth Gliese 1252b and its parent star. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Hot Super-Earth Found Orbiting Red Dwarf Star Gliese 1252

Dec 16, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and multiple ground-based telescopes, astronomers have discovered an ultra-short-period...

A group of therianthropic figures confronting an anoa at Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4. Image credit: Aubert et al.

43,900-Year-Old Cave Painting Portrays Part-Human, Part-Animal Beings

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Archaeologists excavating the limestone cave of Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi have discovered a painting that is approximately...

Hubble Team Releases New Photos of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

Dec 13, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured two new images of 2I/Borisov, the first known interstellar comet to travel through...

Merging Pair of Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies Spotted 13 Billion Light-Years Away

Dec 12, 2019 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international team of astronomers has spotted an unlensed, dusty star-forming galaxy...