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Over-tilting exoplanets. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Sarah Millholland.

Astronomers Find Link between Tilting of Exoplanets and Their Orbit

Mar 5, 2019 by News Staff

For several years, scientists have tried to explain why so many pairs of exoplanets have an odd configuration — their orbits seem to have been pushed...

Close-up view of an iceberg near Mawson Station, November 20, 1988, much of it covered by snow. At the far left is bubbly blue-white glacier ice; the center of the picture shows the clear, dark green, bubble-free marine ice. The boundary between glacier ice and marine ice is nearly vertical. Image credit: Warren et al, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014479.

Study: Color of Green Icebergs is Caused by Iron-Oxide Minerals

Mar 5, 2019 by News Staff

Pure ice is blue because ice absorbs more red light than blue light. Most icebergs appear white or blue when floating in seawater, but since the early...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Ancient Mars Had Planet-Wide Groundwater System

Mar 5, 2019 by News Staff

Observations by ESA’s Mars Express orbiter show evidence of an ancient planet-wide groundwater system on the Red Planet. Mosaic of the Valles Marineris...

Fancourt & Steptoe aimed to explore whether television viewing behaviors in adults aged 50 or over are associated with a decline in cognition. Image credit: Pavlofox.

Too Much TV Linked to Verbal Memory Decline in Older People

Mar 5, 2019 by News Staff

In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, a duo of researchers at University College London, UK, analyzed data from 3,662 adults aged 50...

Injectable photoreceptor-binding nanoparticles with the ability to convert photons from low-energy to high-energy forms allow mice to develop infrared vision without compromising their normal vision and associated behavioral responses. Image credit: Ma et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.01.038.

Injectable Nanoparticles Give Mice Infrared Vision

Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

Humans and other mammals are limited to seeing a range of wavelengths of light called visible light, which includes the wavelengths of the rainbow. But...

The Antarctic blackfin icefish (Chaenocephalus aceratus). Image credit: Thomas Desvignes.

Icefish Genome Reveals Adaptations to Extreme Antarctic Environments

Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

A multinational team of researchers has successfully sequenced the genome of the Antarctic blackfin icefish (Chaenocephalus aceratus), opening a genetic...

Archaeologists Find 1,900-Year-Old Tattooing Artifact in Utah

Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

A team of archaeologists led by Washington State University scientists has discovered an ancient tattoo tool in southeastern Utah. With a handle of skunkbush...

This Hubble image shows two interacting galaxies, known collectively as NGC 6052. The picture was snapped by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Five 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 / A. Adamo et al.

Spectacular Galaxy Collision Captured by Hubble: NGC 6052

Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

A stunning new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures an ongoing cosmic collision between two disk galaxies. This Hubble image shows two...

Sesquizygosis -- whereby twins are genetically identical to each other with respect to one parent but differ from each other by approximately 50% with respect to the composition of DNA inherited from the other parent -- is a third form of twinning. Genetically, sesquizygosis can be considered to be on a continuum between monozygosis and dizygosis. It probably arises after heterogoneic assortment of two paternal genomes and one maternal genome during the first postzygotic cleavage division. Image credit: Gabbett et al, doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1701313.

Extremely Rare Sesquizygotic Twins Identified in Australia

Mar 4, 2019 by News Staff

Twins are traditionally classified as monozygotic (identical) or dizygotic (fraternal). Monozygotic twinning results in genetically identical individuals,...

The superbubbles in NGC 3079 are defined by X-ray, optical and radio emission. Image credit: X-rays - NASA / CXC / University of Michigan / Li et al; optical - NASA / STScI.

Chandra Detects Ultra-Energetic Particles from NGC 3079’s ‘Fermi Bubbles’

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

NGC 3079, an edge-on spiral galaxy located about 67 million light-years from Earth, contains two ‘superbubbles.’ New observations from NASA’s Chandra...

An artist’s impression of a gas cloud swirling around a black hole. Image credit: NAOJ.

ALMA Finds Wandering Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Milky Way’s Central Region

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have spotted streams of molecular gas orbiting around an invisible gravitational...

The skull of Culebratherium alemani. Image credit: Aaron Wood.

Ancient Tusked Sea Cow Unearthed in Panama

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

The remarkably complete fossil skeleton of a sea cow with large incisor tusks that lived approximately 20 million years ago (Miocene epoch) has been discovered...

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Pluto and Charon’s Ancient Craters Indicate Deficit of Very Small Kuiper Belt Objects

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

Collisions between bodies in our Solar System produce impact craters on large objects at a rate that depends on the population of impacting small bodies....

The ultra-diffuse galaxy DGSAT I. Image credit: Aaron Romanowsky / University of California Observatories / D. Martinez-Delgado / ARI.

Astronomers Find Anemic Ultra-Diffuse Galaxy

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

Ultra-diffuse galaxies are a relatively new class of galaxies that were first discovered in 2015. They are as large as our Milky Way but have between 100...

A Chinle frog, inside the jaw of a phitosaur. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

216-Million-Year-Old Microfossils Represent North America’s Earliest Frog

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Arizona have identified microfossils of what are thought to be the oldest known frog relative in North America. A Chinle frog, inside...

Artist’s impression of Planet Nine. Image credit: Tom Ruen / ESO.

Astronomers Provide New Details about Suspected Nature and Location of Planet Nine

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

The presence of a new planet on the outskirts of the Solar System was proposed by Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in 2016 to explain...

The popular view that music enhances creativity has been challenged by Threadgold et al. Image credit: William Iven.

Background Music Stints Creativity, Says New Study

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

In a series of three experiments, a team of psychologists from Lancaster University, the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Gävle...

Fairy circles seen from the air. Image credit: Stephan Getzin.

Scientists May Have Cracked Mystery of Australian Fairy Circles

Feb 27, 2019 by News Staff

Fairy circles are extremely ordered round patches of bare soil within arid grasslands. They are known from southwestern Africa around the Namib Desert...

This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a valley network on Mars. This oblique perspective view was generated using a digital terrain model and Mars Express data gathered on November 19, 2018. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter Spots Ancient River Valley Network

Feb 27, 2019 by News Staff

Mars today is a cold, dry world, but it may not always have been so. Recent studies increasingly indicate that the planet once had a thicker, denser atmosphere...