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Paleoanthropologist Reconstructs Missing Soft Tissues of 3.2 Million-Year-Old ‘Lucy’

A group of Australopithecus afarensis. Image credit: Matheus Vieeira.
Jun 14, 2023 by News Staff

Soft tissues rarely preserve in the fossil record, rather scientists are mostly left with just the skeletal material. Yet, muscles animate the body. They allow an animal to move, walk and run. To understand how an extinct species may have moved, scientists first need to reconstruct the missing soft tissues of the skeleton with an understanding of volume and the composition within the body. In the new study, University of Cambridge’s Dr. Ashleigh...

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Neanderthal. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

Study: Viking Disease is Partly of Neanderthal Origin

Jun 14, 2023 by News Staff

Also known as Dupuytren’s disease, ‘Viking disease’ hand disorder — a condition in which one or more fingers become permanently bent in a flexed...

Life reconstruction of Tiliqua frangens. Image credit: Katrina Kenny.

Giant Armored Skinks Once Roamed Australia

Jun 14, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

There are more species of lizards and snakes alive today than any other order of land vertebrates, yet their fossil record has been poorly documented compared...

Prunus mume. Image credit: Manseok Kim.

Japanese Plum Juice Concentrate Improves Cardiovascular Health

Jun 14, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Fruit from the Japanese plum tree (Prunus mume) is a traditional food in Japan. Traditionally referred to as ‘Ume,’ the raw fruit contains toxins,...

An artist’s impression of Nombe nombe (right) and other prehistoric animals from Nombe Rockshelter, Papua New Guinea. Image credit: Peter Shouten.

Ancient Kangaroos Didn’t Hop, Paleontologists Say

Jun 13, 2023 by News Staff

In a new study, paleontologists from the United Kingdom and Sweden reviewed the fossil evidence of locomotion of kangaroos and their relatives (wallabies,...

An eastern snake-necked turtle (Chelodina longicollis) peering from its shell on the road to Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland, Australia. Image credit: Damien Naidoo / CC BY-SA 3.0.

First Side-Necked Turtle Ever Discovered in United Kingdom

Jun 13, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Dortokidae are a group of poorly known ancient pan-pleurodiran turtles, endemic to Europe with a range from the Early Cretaceous to the Paleogene....

An artist’s rendition of a multiplanetary circumbinary system. Image credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle.

Astronomers Discover New Multiplanetary Circumbinary System

Jun 13, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Circumbinary planetary systems contain planets that orbit around two stars in the center instead of just one, like in our Solar System. An artist’s rendition...

Dopamine release following intragastric glucose and lipid infusions in lean participants and participants with obesity before and after weight loss. Image credit: van Galen et al., doi: 10.1038/s42255-023-00816-9.

Brain Responses to Nutrients are Severely Impaired in Humans with Obesity, Study Shows

Jun 13, 2023 by News Staff

Importantly, the impaired neuronal responses are not restored after diet-induced weight loss, according to a new study led by Amsterdam University Medical...

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (top left) and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (sensor strings, bottom). Image credit: NASA / Fermi / Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State University.

Could Quantum Properties of Spacetime Slow Down Neutrinos?

Jun 13, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, astrophysicists have found preliminary evidence for gamma-ray...

Reconstruction of the small-bodied theropod dinosaur Fukuivenator paradoxus, a sister taxon of Migmanychion laiyang. Image credit: Piotr Menshikov / Sci.News.

New Species of Theropod Dinosaur Identified in China

Jun 12, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of maniraptoran dinosaur has been described from the fossilized skeletal material found in Inner Mongolia, China. Reconstruction...

Webb captured extraordinarily detailed images and spectra of galaxies that existed when the Universe was only 900 million years old. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Simon Lilly, ETH Zurich / Daichi Kashino, Nagoya University / Jorryt Matthee, ETH Zurich / Christina Eilers, MIT / Rongmon Bordoloi, NCSU / Ruari Mackenzie, ETH Zurich / Alyssa Pagan, STScI / Ruari Mackenzie, ETH Zurich.

Star-Forming Galaxies Reionized Early Universe, Astronomers Say

Jun 12, 2023 by News Staff

Only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the infant Universe was brimming with opaque hydrogen gas that trapped light at some wavelengths from...

Parker Solar Probe has flown through the solar corona and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Parker Solar Probe Identifies Mechanism Driving Fast Solar Wind

Jun 12, 2023 by News Staff

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has flown close enough to the Sun to detect the fine structure of the solar wind close to where it is generated at the solar...

Strong evidence suggesting that frying in space is possible. Image credit: Lioumbas et al., doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2022.112249.

Is Frying Possible in Space?

Jun 12, 2023 by Natali Anderson

French fries are a very popular food commodity across many cultural backgrounds on Earth and as such they may be appreciated by long-term space travelers....

This Hubble image shows NGC 7292, an irregular galaxy some 44 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Two filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Kilpatrick.

Hubble Space Telescope Inspects NGC 7292

Jun 12, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced this beautiful image of the remarkable low surface brightness galaxy NGC 7292. This Hubble image shows...

The 12,000-year-old sound-making instruments from Eynan-Mallaha, Israel. Image credit: Davin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-35700-9.

12,000-Year-Old Flutes Unearthed in Israel

Jun 9, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have found seven flutes made of perforated bird bones at the Natufian site of Eynan-Mallaha in northern Israel. These instruments were intentionally...

SN 2023ixf (lower left) exploded in one of the spiral arms of Messier 101. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. Miller, Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Rodriguez, Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF’s NOIRLab / D. de Martin, NSF’s NOIRLab.

Gemini North Telescope Observes Supernova Explosion in Messier 101

Jun 9, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A supernova dubbed SN 2023ixf was discovered on May 19, 2023 by the Japanese astronomer Koichi Itagaki. SN 2023ixf (lower left) exploded in one of the...

Xiong et al. observed a correlated insulator of interlayer excitons in a bilayer consisting of tungsten diselenide, which hosted holes, and tungsten disulfide, which hosted electrons. Image credit: Xiong et al., doi: 10.1126/science.add5574.

Physicists Create New Exotic State of Matter: Bosonic Correlated Insulator

Jun 9, 2023 by News Staff

This is the first time a highly ordered crystal of bosonic particles called excitons has been created in a real — as opposed to synthetic —...

Life reconstruction of the extinct bear-dog Amphicyon ingens, a very distant relative of Eoarctos vorax. Image credit: Roman Uchytel.

Oligocene-Period Raccoon-Like Mammal Had Mollusk-Based Diet

Jun 8, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in the United States have identified a new genus and species of early arctoid from an exquisitely preserved skeleton found in North Dakota’s...

Eukaryotic life appears to have flourished surprisingly late in the history of Earth. This view is based on the low diversity of diagnostic eukaryotic fossils in marine sediments of mid-Proterozoic age (around 1.6 billion to 800 million years ago) and an absence of steranes, the molecular fossils of eukaryotic membrane sterols. This scarcity of eukaryotic remains is difficult to reconcile with molecular clocks that suggest that LECA had already emerged between around 1.2 and more than 1.8 billion years ago. LECA, in turn, must have been preceded by stem-group eukaryotic forms by several hundred million years. Brocks et al. report the discovery of abundant protosteroids in sedimentary rocks of mid-Proterozoic age. Image credit: Arek Socha.

Molecular Remains of Ancient Complex Life Found in 1.6-Billion-Year-Old Rocks

Jun 8, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have detected abundant protosteroids — traces of ancient life forms — in 1.6-billion-year-old sedimentary rocks that had formed...

An adult American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) at La Manzanilla, Jalisco, Mexico. Image credit: Tomás Castelazo.

Facultative Parthenogenesis Recorded in Crocodilians for First Time Ever

Jun 8, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatic analysis, scientists provide the first evidence of facultative parthenogenesis in a crocodilian —...

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