News

Webb Detects Water in Terrestrial Planet-Forming Zone around PDS 70

This artist’s concept portrays PDS 70 and its inner protoplanetary disk. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Olmsted, STScI.
Jul 25, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Terrestrial and sub-Neptune exoplanets are expected to form in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks around their parent stars. Water plays a key role in their formation, although it is yet unclear whether water molecules are formed in situ or transported from the outer disk. The planetary system PDS 70 is a benchmark target to search for water in a disk hosting an 8-billion-km planet-carved gap separating an inner and outer disk. Using the data...

read more...
Increasing olive oil intake in place of margarine and mayonnaise represents a potential strategy to reduce fatal dementia risk. Image credit: StockSnap.

Regular Olive Oil Consumption Reduces Fatal Dementia Risk, Study Suggests

Jul 25, 2023 by Natali Anderson

In a large study of U.S. adults, higher olive oil intake was associated with a moderately lower risk of fatal dementia, irrespective of diet quality. Increasing...

Reconstruction of Minimocursor phunoiensis. Image credit: Sci.News / Sita Manitkoon / Peter Lutz.

New Neornithischian Dinosaur Unearthed in Thailand

Jul 24, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Minimocursor phunoiensis is the earliest known neornithischian dinosaur from Southeast Asia as well as one of the best-preserved dinosaurs ever found in...

Hoaxed photo of the Loch Ness ‘monster’ from April 21, 1934.

Loch Ness Monster: If It’s Real, Could It Be Giant European Eel?

Jul 24, 2023 by News Staff

The ‘eel hypothesis’ proposes that the anthrozoological phenomenon at Loch Ness in Scotland can be explained in part by observations of large-bodied...

This Hubble image of Dimorphos was taken on December 19, 2022, nearly four months after the asteroid was impacted by NASA’s DART mission. Dimorphos has a blue dust tail extending diagonally to the upper right. A cluster of blue dots surrounds the asteroid. These are boulders that were knocked off the asteroid. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Jewitt, UCLA.

Hubble Spots Swarm of Boulders around Asteroid Dimorphos

Jul 24, 2023 by News Staff

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally slammed into the 160-m-wide asteroid moonlet Dimorphos — which...

Wataria stumps and Byttneriophyllum bed at a Miocene-period locality in Japan. The largest Wataria stump is an individual #1 with a trunk about 1.37-m in diameter. Image credit: Nishino et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-37211-z.

Paleontologists Unearth Miocene Fossil Forest in Japan

Jul 24, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered an exceptionally well-preserved monodominant forest of the wood fossil-species Wataria parvipora at a Miocene locality...

This Hubble image UGC 12295, a face-on spiral galaxy located some 192 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Filippenko / J. Lyman.

Hubble Captures Image of Beautiful Face-On Spiral Galaxy

Jul 24, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Hubble team has released a stunning new image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the spiral galaxy UGC 12295. This Hubble image UGC...

The footed grinding slab from the archaeological site of Oc Eo in Vietnam. Scale bar - 10 cm. Image credit: Wang et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adh5517.

Archaeologists Find Grinding Stones with Traces of 2,000-Year-Old Curry in Vietnam

Jul 23, 2023 by News Staff

The global spice trade has played an essential role in world history. However, because of poor preservation conditions, archaeobotanical remains of spices...

The sabertooth cat species Lokotunjailurus emageritus and the gomphothere-like elephantid species Stegotetrabelodon in Late Miocene Lothagam, Kenya. Image credit: Mauricio Antón / CC BY 3.0.

Two New Species of Saber-Toothed Cats Identified in South Africa

Jul 21, 2023 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the 5.2-million-year-old fossilized remains of four sabertooth cat species — including two previously unknown species,...

SPT-CL J2215-3537 resembles a blue cloud with a hazy golden light at its core. The cluster is set against the blackness of space, which is dotted with white, orange and blue specks of light. A combination of X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light, was used to create the image. The blue cloud represents X-ray gas observed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The cloud is soft, and uniform in texture. Over time, galaxy clusters often merge or collide. These collisions cause disturbances and sharp features in a cluster’s gas. When a cluster takes on a smooth, calm appearance, as found here in SPT-CL J2215-3537, it indicates that no such collisions have occurred for a very long time. Astronomers call these galaxy clusters ‘relaxed.’ The hazy golden light at the heart of the cloud represents a massive central galaxy with a large amount of star formation. This central galaxy is quite isolated within the blue gas cloud. There are relatively few nearby specks of light near the central galaxy, and none are as bright or as large. No other large galaxies have been found within 600,000 light-years of the central galaxy. This implies that SPT-CL J2215-3537 has not experienced a galaxy merger in the last billion years. Image credit: NASA / CXC / MIT / M. Calzadilla / STScI / HST / N. Wolk.

Chandra Spots ‘Relaxed’ Galaxy Cluster in Distant Universe

Jul 21, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The dynamically relaxed galaxy cluster SPT-CL J2215-3537 is about 8.4 billion light-years from Earth, making it the farthest galaxy cluster ever spotted...

The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus). Image credit: Chris Gotschalk.

Basking Sharks are Partially Warm-Blooded, New Research Suggests

Jul 20, 2023 by News Staff

Few fast-swimming apex fishes are classified as regional endotherms, or partially warm-blooded, having evolved a relatively uncommon suite of traits (e.g....

Marchi et al. compared the early impact history of Venus and Earth, determining that Venus experienced higher-energy impacts creating a superheated core. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Early, Energetic Collisions Could Have Fueled Venus Volcanism: Study

Jul 20, 2023 by News Staff

New research shows that long-lived volcanism, driven by early, energetic collisions on Venus, offers an explanation of its young surface age with stagnant-lid...

The 300,000-year-old double-pointed wooden stick at the site of Schöningen in Germany. Image credit: Peter Pfarr.

Middle Pleistocene Humans Possessed Sophisticated Woodworking Skills, Study Reveals

Jul 20, 2023 by News Staff

An analysis of a 300,000-year-old double-pointed wooden stick from the Middle Pleistocene site of Schöningen, Germany, shows it was scraped, seasoned...

This ALMA image shows the young planetary system PDS 70. The system features a star at its center, around which the planet PDS 70b (highlighted with a solid yellow circle) is orbiting. On the same orbit as PDS 70b, indicated by a solid yellow ellipse, Balsalobre-Ruza et al. detected a cloud of debris (circled by a yellow dotted line) that could be the building blocks of a new planet or the remnants of one already formed. The ring-like structure that dominates the image is a circumstellar disk of material, out of which planets are forming. There is in fact another planet in this system: PDS 70c, seen at 3 o’clock right next to the inner rim of the disk. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Balsalobre-Ruza et al.

ALMA Detects Possible Trojan Protoplanet around PDS 70

Jul 20, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

PDS 70, a young K7-type star some 370 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, is a unique target for planetary formation studies...

Illustration showing Repenomamus robustus as it attacks Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis before a volcanic debris flow buries them both, approximately 125 million years ago. Image credit: Michael Skrepnick.

Unique Fossil Captures Struggle for Existence during Cretaceous Period

Jul 19, 2023 by News Staff

The unusual fossil from around 125 million years ago shows a dramatic moment in time when a species of badger-like carnivorous mammal called Repenomamus...

An artist’s impression of the two-faced white dwarf ZTF J203349.8+322901.1. Image credit: K. Miller, Caltech / IPAC.

Newfound White Dwarf Has Different Compositions on Its Opposite Faces

Jul 19, 2023 by News Staff

ZTF J203349.8+322901.1, nicknamed Janus after the two-faced Roman god of transition, is a transitioning white dwarf with two faces: one side of its atmosphere...

Yang et al. show that large-bodied pterosaurs, such as the giant pterosaur Pteranodon (shown here), probably practiced parental care. Image credit: James Robins / UCC.

Large-Bodied Pterosaurs Were Caring Parents, Paleontologists Say

Jul 19, 2023 by News Staff

To be able to fly soon after hatching from the egg, a bird or pterosaur must have well-developed wings. Studies of small-bodies pterosaur species from...

Using NMR-based analysis, Tira et al. were able to identify the most abundant constituents of espresso coffee. Image credit: Sci.News.

Espresso Coffee Mitigates Aggregation and Condensation of Alzheimer’s Protein in Lab Experiments

Jul 19, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Espresso coffee is among the most consumed beverages in the world. Recent studies report a protective activity of the coffee beverage against neurodegenerative...

The structure of boron monoxide was a longstanding problem, dating back to 1940. Solving it required developing new NMR methods as well as applying x-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), x-ray photo electron spectroscopy (XPS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Image credit: U.S. Department of Energy Ames National Laboratory.

Chemists Finally Determine Structure of Boron Monoxide

Jul 19, 2023 by News Staff

Boron monoxide, a binary compound of boron and oxygen, was first reported in the 1940s. However, scientists were unable to determine the structure of the...

An artistic reconstruction of Alligator munensis. Image credit: Márton Szabó.

Fossil of Deep-Snouted Alligator Species Found in Thailand

Jul 18, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The newly-identified species is closely related to the Chinese alligator (Alligator sinensis), the only living representative of Alligatoridae (the crown-group...

© 2011-2026. Sci.News. All Rights Reserved. | Back to top