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Rats Taught How to Drive Tiny Cars

Oct 24, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Rats can learn the complex task of navigating a rodent-operated vehicle (ROV) to a desired area, according to new research from the University of Richmond. Crawford...

An artist’s reconstruction of the Devonian-period Sosnogorsk lagoon just before a storm. Image credit: Mikhail Shekhanov / Ukhta Local Museum.

Devonian Tetrapod Had Crocodile-Like Lifestyle

Oct 24, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered the fossils of a new type of early tetrapod (four-limbed vertebrate) in the Komi Republic. Dubbed Parmastega aelidae, the...

Freshly-Synthesized Strontium Detected in Neutron Star Merger

Oct 23, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have detected a freshly made heavy element, strontium, in the aftermath of GW170817, a merger of two...

Massive Star-Forming Galaxy Spotted in Early Universe

Oct 23, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered faint traces of a huge dust-obscured star-forming galaxy never seen before,...

A male white bellbird (Procnias albus). Image credit: Anselmo d’Affonseca, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia.

White Bellbird Has Loudest Songs in Avian Kingdom: Study

Oct 22, 2019 by News Staff

A duo of ornithologists from the United States and Brazil has recorded the loudest bird song (up to 125.4 db) ever documented, made by males of the white...

Stormquakes offshore North America and seismic stations from 2006 to 2015. The located stormquakes are shown as the red circles, and the seismic stations are shown as triangles. Due to the location uncertainties, some of the apparent stormquake locations are beyond the coastlines. The yellow contours show regions where stormquakes were detected. The orange contour shows a comparison region offshore Mexico that has been struck by hurricanes but without excitation of stormquakes. The insert shows earthquakes (blue dots) reported in the International Seismological Centre catalog with magnitudes greater than 3 and shallower than 40 km from 2006 to 2015. Image credit: Fan et al, doi: 10.1029/2019GL084217.

New Geophysical Phenomenon Discovered: Stormquakes

Oct 22, 2019 by News Staff

Energetic storms generate strong ocean waves, which can interact with shallow seafloor features located near the edge of continental shelves known as ocean...

An aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis). Image credit: David Haring.

Scientists Find Pseudothumbs in Aye-Aye’s Hands

Oct 22, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers from North Carolina State University and CNRS have found that aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) possess pseudothumbs...

Spectacled Flowerpecker: New Species of Bird Discovered

Oct 21, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of ornithologists led by by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History has discovered and scientifically...

This artist’s rendering shows a white dwarf star with two planets. Image credit: Mark Garlick.

Rocky Exoplanets Often Have Earth- and Mars-Like Internal Properties

Oct 18, 2019 by News Staff

White dwarfs are dense, burned-out remnants of normal stars. Due to their strong gravitational pull, surface atmospheres of these ancient objects should...

An artist’s impression of gas flowing like a waterfall into a protoplanetary disk gap, which is most likely caused by an infant planet. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Finds Gas Waterfalls in Planet-Forming Disk around HD 163296

Oct 18, 2019 by News Staff

At three locations in the protoplanetary disk around HD 163296, a young star located approximately 400 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius,...

An artist’s impression of the center of the barred spiral galaxy Messier 77. ALMA discovered two counter-rotating flows of gas around the black hole. The colors in this image represent the motion of the gas: blue is material moving toward us, red is moving away. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Spots Counter-Rotating Disks around Supermassive Black Hole in Messier 77

Oct 17, 2019 by News Staff

Supermassive black holes, millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun, are found at the centers of galaxies. Many of these enormous objects are hidden...

On October 12, 2019, Hubble observed the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov at a distance of approximately 261 million miles from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Jewitt, University of California, Los Angeles.

Hubble Captures Sharpest Image Yet of Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

Oct 16, 2019 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured an amazing new photo of 2I/Borisov, the first known interstellar comet ever identified. On October 12,...

A capuchin monkey. Image credit: Georgia State University.

Capuchin and Rhesus Monkeys Outsmart Humans When It Comes to Cognitive Flexibility

Oct 16, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, when it comes to being willing to explore more efficient options to solving a problem, capuchin...

False-color and X-ray images of the giant arc in SPT-CLJ2344-4243: the X-ray-emitting giant arc is shown relative to the center of the foreground lensing galaxy cluster in a false-color image at optical wavelengths; the inset shows Chandra X-ray (left) and Hubble optical (right) images of the giant arc at a scale 1.5 times larger; the optical colors here are given by Hubble imaging data in the F850LP (red), F775W (green) and F475W (blue) filters; two magenta circles indicate the locations of the X-ray emission from the giant arc in both inset panels; the lensing geometry of the giant arc is a pair of merging images, where the lower and upper halves of the arc are each a single image with mirror symmetry. Image credit: Bayliss et al, doi: 10.1038/s41550-019-0888-7.

Phoenix Cluster’s Gravity Magnifies X-Rays from Extremely Distant Star-Forming Galaxy

Oct 15, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers have used a huge group of galaxies called the Phoenix cluster as a cosmic magnifying glass to detect X-ray emission from a very distant dwarf...

This composite image, obtained by the Gemini North Multi-Object Spectrograph on the 8.2-m Gemini North telescope, shows the interstellar comet C/2019 Q4. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NSF / AURA / Travis Rector.

Diatomic Carbon Detected in Interstellar Comet 2I/Borisov

Oct 13, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers have detected the emission from the small carbon chains C2 in the coma of 2I/Borisov, the first known interstellar comet to visit our Solar...

Milky Way Captured Few Dwarf Galaxies from Nearby Large Magellanic Cloud

Oct 11, 2019 by News Staff

Our Milky Way Galaxy is orbited by more than 50 companion galaxies. According to new research led by University of California, Riverside astronomers, several...

Honeybees are Even Better Mathematicians than We Thought

Oct 11, 2019 by News Staff

Humans have a threshold limit for instantly processing one to four elements accurately; and it seems that our species is not alone, says a team of scientists...

An adult female Visayan warty pig uses a piece of bark as a digging tool. Image credit: Root-Bernstein et al, doi: 10.1016/j.mambio.2019.08.003.

Visayan Warty Pigs Join Tool-Users Club

Oct 9, 2019 by Natali Anderson

Scientists have uncovered the first evidence of tool use by the Visayan warty pig (Sus cebifrons), a critically endangered species native to the Philippines. An...

Mold Pigs: Strange Creatures with Features of Mites and Tardigrades Found in Amber

Oct 9, 2019 by News Staff

A previously unknown family, genus and species of microinvertebrates has been found in amber from the Dominican Republic. Nicknamed ‘mold pigs,’ these...