Page 388 | Sci.News: Breaking Science News

Carn Goedog quarry. Image credit: University College London.

Stonehenge’s Bluestones Were Quarried in Wales 5,000 Years Ago

Feb 20, 2019 by News Staff

Geologists and archaeologists have long known that the builders of Stonehenge made use of two main types of stone: a silcrete, known as ‘sarsen,’ was...

Ringed White Dwarf Spotted 145 Light-Years Away

Feb 20, 2019 by News Staff

Professional astronomers and volunteers working with the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project have spotted the oldest and coldest known white...

An artist’s impression of the InSight lander on Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Mars Weather: Daily Reports from NASA’s InSight Lander

Feb 20, 2019 by News Staff

Beginning Tuesday, February 19, 2019, NASA’s InSight lander will provide a daily report of atmospheric weather conditions on Mars. This tool, developed...

The two types of chiral surface excitons are on the right and left side of the image. They are generated by right- and left-handed light (photons in blue). The excitons consist of an electron (light blue) orbiting a ‘hole’ (black) in the same orientation as the light. The electron and hole are annihilated in less than a trillionth of a second, emitting light (photons in green) that could be harnessed for lighting, solar cells, lasers and electronic displays. Image credit: Hsiang-Hsi (Sean) Kung / Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Scientists Discover Exotic Spiraling Electrons

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

Rutgers University’s Professor Girsh Blumberg and colleagues have discovered an exotic form of electrons that spin like planets. Named chiral surface...

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias). Image credit: Byron Dilkes, Danah Divers.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Great White Shark

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of scientists from the United States and Europe has successfully sequenced the genome of the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)...

Volume rendering showing continuity between sheet and string morphologies in a single specimen. Scale bars - 1 cm. Image credit: El Albani et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1815721116.

Multicellular Life Began 1.5 Billion Years Earlier than Thought

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

Approximately 2.1-billion-year-old fossilized tracks discovered in Gabon suggest the existence of a cluster of single cells that came together to form...

Cassowaries use their casque much in the same way as some other birds use their beaks for heat exchange. Image credit: Lolame.

Cassowary’s Distinctive Helmet Acts as Thermal Radiator

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

The cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) is a large, flightless bird that bears a prominent helmet (or casque). The function of the cranial structure has attracted...

Excessive use of cigarettes, or chronic exposure to their compounds, affects visual discrimination, supporting the existence of overall deficits in visual processing in tobacco addiction. Image credit: Free-Photos.

Smoking More Than 20 Cigarettes a Day Can Damage Vision, Study Says

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

Heavy smokers — those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day — have significant changes in the red-green and blue-yellow color vision and...

The main part of this graphic is from the Millenium simulation, which uses supercomputers to formulate how the key components of the Universe, including the WHIM, would have evolved over cosmic time. If these filaments exist, they could absorb certain types of light such as X-rays that pass through them. The inset in this graphic represents some of the X-ray data collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory from a distant, rapidly-growing supermassive black hole known as a quasar. The plot is a spectrum -- the amount of X-rays over a range of wavelengths -- from a new study of the quasar H1821+643 that is located about 3.4 billion light years from Earth. Image credit: Springel et al / NASA / CXC / CfA / Kovacs et al.

Astrophysicists May Have Found Universe’s ‘Missing Mass’

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

About a third of the normal matter — meaning hydrogen, helium and other elements — created shortly after the Big Bang is not seen in the present-day...

The Somali red aloe (Aloe sanguinalis), with co-author Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Awale, at Lafarug, Somaliland, in January 2018. Image credit: Barkworth et al, doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.117.28226.

New Species of Aloe Discovered in Somaliland

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

A species of aloe believed to be new to science has been found in Somaliland, a self-declared state, internationally considered to be an autonomous region...

An artist’s impression of Orion Source I, a young, massive star about 1,500 light-years away. The blue region -- about 1/3 the way out from the center of the disk -- represents the region where ALMA detected the millimeter-wavelength ‘glow’ from the salts. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Detects Salts around Young Star

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected the chemical fingerprints of sodium chloride (NaCl), potassium...

This diagram shows how the effects of Gαs-coupled agonists on T cells can be influenced by sleep or disease. Image credit: Dimitrov et al, doi: 10.1084/jem.20181169.

Study: Sleep Improves Ability of Human Immune Cells to Bind to Their Targets

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

A new study published online in the Journal of Experimental Medicine describes how sleep can fight off an infection, whereas other conditions, such as...

Night sky centered on the south Galactic pole in a so-called stereographic projection. In this special projection, the Milky Way curves around the entire image in an arc. The stars in the stream are displayed in red and cover almost the entire southern Galactic hemisphere, thereby crossing many well-known constellations. Image credit: Meingast et al, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201834950 / Gaia DR2 skymap.

Astronomers Discover Large Stream of Stars in Solar Neighborhood

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s Gaia satellite have discovered a large stellar stream that is currently traversing the immediate solar neighborhood at a distance...

Pollen patterns: SEM images and simulations. Image credit: Asja Radja / Maxim Lavrentovich.

Nature Favors Production of Asymmetrical Pollen Grains

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Cell, plants favor the production of uneven, asymmetrical patterns on the surface of pollen grains over...

Mnyamawamtuka moyowamkia in its environmental setting. Image credit: Mark Witton.

New Titanosaurian Dinosaur Unearthed in Tanzania

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Tanzania have found fossil fragments from a new species of giant dinosaur that walked the Earth approximately 100 million years ago...

Beta-carboline compounds offer great promise for the treatment of alcoholism. Image credit: Imagens Evangelicas / CC BY 2.0.

Researchers Identify Gene as Target for Alcoholism Prevention and Treatment

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the Oregon National Primate Research Center at Oregon Health and Sciences University has found that a gene called the G-protein...

Ultima Thule’s ‘Lobes’ Are Not Spherical, New Horizons Images Show

Feb 14, 2019 by News Staff

A series of images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft contains important scientific information about the true shape of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima...

Spotted softshell turtles (Pelodiscus variegatus) in life, females. Image credit: Thomas Ziegler.

Researchers Discover New Species of Softshell Turtle

Feb 14, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Hungary, Germany and Vietnam has discovered a new, critically endangered species of softshell turtle in north-central Vietnam...

Gestures of our primate cousins may be more similar to our own language than previously thought. Image credit: Republica.

Chimpanzees’ Gestural Communication Follows Same Laws as Human Language: Study

Feb 14, 2019 by News Staff

According to a new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, gestures of chimpanzees follow the same mathematical patterns — known...