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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,...

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 Spot Ultra-Massive White Dwarf with Unique Atmosphere

Mar 3, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered an ultra-massive white dwarf with a unique carbon-hydrogen mixed atmosphere. Named WD J055134.612+413531.09 (WD J0551+4135...

Abel et al present the result of an experiment to measure the electric dipole moment of the neutron at the Paul Scherrer Institute using Ramsey’s method of separated oscillating magnetic fields with ultracold neutrons. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

Physicists Precisely Measure Electric Dipole Moment of Neutron

Mar 2, 2020 by News Staff

In a paper in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of physicists reports the most precise measurement ever made of the electric dipole...

A honeybee (Apis mellifera). Image credit: Vijaya Narasimha.

New Study Reveals Link between Bee and Human Brains

Mar 2, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from New Zealand and Germany has demonstrated that the honeybee brain generates oscillations which share characteristics of ‘alpha’...

Artist’s impression of a cloud of trapped antihydrogen atoms. Image credit: Chukman So.

CERN Physicists Measure Quantum Effects in Energy Structure of Antihydrogen

Feb 28, 2020 by News Staff

In 1947, American physicist Willis Lamb and his colleagues observed an incredibly small shift in the energy levels of the hydrogen atom as the atom’s...

Facivermis yunnanicus. Image credit: Franz Anthony.

Paleontologists Solve Mystery of Cambrian Worm-Like Creature

Feb 28, 2020 by News Staff

An enigmatic worm-like animal called Facivermis yunnanicus lost lower limbs for tube-dwelling lifestyle, according to new research published in the journal...

Light microscopic image of the piece of 15-20-million-year old Dominican amber; the specimen contains a fairy wasp and the left forelimb of an anole lizard; several flow structures can be recognized in the resin. Image credit: Barthel et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0228843.

Lizard Forefoot Found Preserved in Dominican Amber

Feb 28, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

The left forelimb of an anole lizard (genus Anolis) has been found perfectly preserved in a piece of Miocene-period amber from the Dominican Republic. Light...

Evidence for the biggest black hole eruption seen in the Universe comes from a combination of X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton, and the Murchison Widefield Array and Giant Metrewave Telescope, as shown here. The eruption is generated by a black hole located in the central galaxy of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, which has blasted out jets and carved a large cavity in the surrounding hot gas. Image credit: NASA / CXC / NRL / S. Giacintucci et al / ESA / XMM-Newton / NCRA / TIFR / GMRT / 2MASS / UMass / IPAC-Caltech / NSF.

Universe’s Most Powerful Black Hole Eruption Spotted

Feb 28, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray space observatories, along with two ground-based radio telescopes in Australia and India,...

This artist’s impression shows planets K2-18b and c and their host star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Kornmesser.

Super-Earth Exoplanet K2-18b Could Have Right Conditions for Life

Feb 27, 2020 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, UK, has found K2-18b, a planet of almost nine Earth masses in orbit...

2020 CD3 is estimated to be only between one and six meters across. Image credit: Jonny Lindner.

Earth Has New, Temporary Moon: 2020 CD3

Feb 27, 2020 by The Conversation

The Minor Planet Centre has just announced that our planet has been orbited by a second moon for the past three years or so. Designated 2020 CD3, the object...

Physicists Probe Core of Strong Nuclear Interaction between Protons and Neutrons

Feb 27, 2020 by News Staff

The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, which also include gravity, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force. The strong force...

This image, taken by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón in Chile, shows the planetary nebula CVMP 1. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory / AURA.

Astronomers Snap Photo of Beautiful Planetary Nebula

Feb 27, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Gemini South telescope on the summit of Cerro Pachon in Chile have taken a picture of CVMP 1, a planetary nebula located some 6,500...

Biologists Discover Animal that Lacks Mitochondrial Genome, Doesn’t Need Oxygen to Live

Feb 26, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of biologists has discovered that a tiny parasite of salmon called Henneguya salminicola has no mitochondrial genome and thus has...