Page 379 | Sci.News: Breaking Science News

A fireball. Image credit: NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance / Sci-News.com.

Meteor of Interstellar Origin May Have Slammed into Earth in 2014

Apr 18, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

A meteor seen over the South Pacific, off the northern coast of Papua New Guinea, in 2014 likely came from interstellar space, according to new research...

Mercury. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Mercury Has Solid Inner Core, Planetary Scientists Say

Apr 18, 2019 by News Staff

Planetary researchers have long known that Earth and Mercury have metallic cores. Mercury’s core fills nearly 85% of the volume of the planet —...

The discovery of a spike of mercury in 252-million-year-old rock at locations around the world gives evidence for the prevailing theory that volcanic eruptions caused the end-Permian extinction. Image credit: Margaret Weiner / University of Cincinnati Creative Services.

Volcanic Eruptions Caused End-Permian Extinction, New Evidence Confirms

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists from China and the United States has found high levels of mercury in the end-Permian marine sediments at nearly...

Water is released from the Moon during meteor showers, when micrometeoroid impacts breach the dry lunar surface and eject water molecules from a hydrated layer below. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Conceptual Image Lab.

LADEE Detects Water Molecules from Meteoroid Strikes on Moon

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), a team of researchers has discovered that water is being released from...

A 3D-printed, small-scaled human heart engineered from the patient’s own materials and cells. Image credit: Noor et al, doi: 10.1002/advs.201900344.

Researchers Create 3D-Printed Heart Using Patient’s Own Cells

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists at Tel Aviv University, Israel, has 3D-printed the first vascularized engineered heart using a human patient’s own cells and biological...

An artist’s interpretation of ancient North American fauna. The new study revealed that elephant-like gomphotheres, rhinos, horses and antelopes with slingshot-shaped horns were among the species recovered near Beeville, Texas, by Great Depression-era fossil hunters. Image credit: Jay Matternes / Smithsonian Institution.

Rhinos, Gomphotheres, Camels, Horses, Antelopes and Alligators Lived in Ancient ‘Texas Serengeti’

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

Dr. Steven May, a paleontology research associate at the University of Texas at Austin, has studied and identified an extensive collection of fossils from...

An artist’s conception of HD 21749c, the first Earth-sized planet found by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS), as well as its sibling, HD 21749b, a warm sub-Neptune-sized world. Image credit: Robin Dienel / Carnegie Institution for Science.

HD 21749c: TESS Discovers Its First Earth-Sized Exoplanet

Apr 17, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-sized planet — HD 21749c. An artist’s conception of HD 21749c,...

Figurative painting in Romualdova Pećina, Croatia. Image credit: Aitor Ruiz-Redondo.

34,000-Year-Old Figurative Cave Paintings Found in Croatia

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

A team of archaeologists from the United States and Europe has revealed the first example of Paleolithic figurative cave art found in the Balkan region. Figurative...

An illustration showing how a sliver of cometary building block material was swallowed by an asteroid and preserved inside a meteorite. Image credit: Larry Nittler / NASA.

Scientists Find Cometary Fragment in Primitive Asteroidal Meteorite

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

A cometary building block has been discovered inside the LaPaz Icefield (LAP) 02342, a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite found in Antarctica in the 2000s. An...

Snow-TENG: (a) harnessing and sensing biomechanical movements by attaching a snow-TENG to different locations of the human body; (b) measurement of the electrical output from a snow-TENG device that uses a snowfall mode when attached on the (i) shoulder, (ii) wrist, and (iii) knee; (c-i) a photograph of the snow-TENG device assembled and attached to the bottom of a snow boot as a self-powered biomechanical sensor; (c-ii) electrical outputs from the snow-TENG as the wearer performs different movements -- running, jumping, walking, and marching. Image credit: Ahmed et al, doi: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2019.03.032.

Researchers Develop Snow-Based Energy Harvester

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from the United States, Canada, Egypt and Ireland has developed a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that...

An artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Image credit: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Titan’s Lakes are Surprisingly Deep, Have Methane-Dominated Composition, Says Cassini Team

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

Radar data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have revealed that small lakes in the northern hemisphere of Saturn’s hazy moon Titan are surprisingly deep...

Left: topography of the predominantly contralateral beta oscillatory activity during rest periods predictive of micro-offline learning, indicated by the LME (linear mixed effects) model coefficient. Right: frontoparietal beta activity predicted micro-offline gains throughout the duration of early-learning rest periods. Image credit: Bönstrup et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.02.049.

Study: Human Brain Uses Short Rest Periods to Strengthen Memories

Apr 16, 2019 by News Staff

In a study published in the journal Current Biology, a team of researchers from the United States, Switzerland and Israel found that taking short breaks,...

Digital art by Les Bossinas, Cortez III Service Corp., 1998.

Traversable Wormholes Can Exist, But They Are Not Very Useful for Space Travel, Physicists Say

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

Harvard University physicist Daniel Jafferis and colleagues have shown that wormholes — theoretical portals through space-time that could create...

Coles et al provide the strongest evidence to date that facial expressions can influence our feelings. Image credit: Sasin Tipchai.

Smiling Can Make Us Feel Little Bit Happier, Review Says

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

According to a review of previous studies, published in the Psychological Bulletin, emotional facial expressions — such as smiling — can influence...

This image of Messier 62 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments. It is based on data obtained through four filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / S. Anderson et al.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Messier 62

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

NASA has released a stunning image snapped by the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope of the globular cluster Messier 62. This image of Messier 62 is a composite...

Minisauripus: natural impression (A) and cast (B) of track TL 2 showing area enlarged in frame F; note skin traces in hypex area between digits II and III; (C) natural cast of track TR1, showing area enlarged in frame E; note narrow, digit II intersecting raindrop impressions; (D) isolated track t; note skin traces in hypex area between digits II and III; E and F details of skin trace ornament in 2.0 x 2.0 mm areas of digits IV and II respectively from tracks TL2 and TR1; casts show in frames B-F are essentially replicas of the living foot. Image credit: Kim et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-38633-4.

Paleontologists Find Exquisitely-Preserved Dinosaur Skin Traces

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

Several footprints and exquisitely-preserved skin impressions made by a small theropod dinosaur approximately 120 million years ago (Aptian age of the...

This infrared image was recorded by Subaru Telescope’s COMICS instrument. Sinclair et al used red, blue and yellow to infuse this image; regions of the atmosphere that are more yellow and red indicate the hotter areas. This highlights the auroral heating that occurs at Jupiter’s poles, where energy from the solar wind and magnetosphere are deposited. This image was captured on January 12, 2017. Image credit: NAOJ / NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Subaru Telescope Finds Evidence of Auroral Heating at Jupiter’s Poles

Apr 15, 2019 by News Staff

New observations with the Subaru Telescope, a Japanese 8-m telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, show that aurorae at Jupiter’s poles are heating the atmosphere...

Now retired twin astronauts, Scott (right) and Mark (left) Kelly, are subjects of NASA’s Twins Study. Image credit: Derek Storm, www.derekstorm.com.

NASA’s Twins Study Provides Biomolecular View into How Human Body Responds to Spaceflight

Apr 12, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Twins Study brought ten teams of researchers from around the country together to observe what physiological, molecular and cognitive changes could...

Denisovans were probably dark-skinned, unlike the pale Neandertals. The picture shows a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Mauro Cutrona.

Two Independent Denisovan Lineages Contributed to Modern Papuan Genomes: Study

Apr 12, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Cell, modern Papuans carry hundreds of gene variants from two Denisovan lineages — distinct from...