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Early Triassic Marine Reptile Had Platypus-Like Bill

Eretmorhipis carrolldongi had a long rigid body, a small head, tiny eyes and four flippers for swimming and steering. Image credit: Gianluca Danini.
Jan 25, 2019 by News Staff

Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, a 28-inch (70 cm) long marine reptile that lived about 250 million years ago (early Triassic epoch) in what is now China, likely used its platypus-like bill to hunt by touch. Eretmorhipis carrolldongi had a long rigid body, a small head, tiny eyes and four flippers for swimming and steering. Image credit: Gianluca Danini. “Eretmorhipis carrolldongi was previously known only from partial fossils without a head,” said...

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An artist’s impression of an extrasolar submoon. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Can Moons Have Submoons?

Jan 25, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn’s moons Titan and Iapetus, Jupiter’s moon Callisto, Earth’s Moon, and the recently-discovered extrasolar moon Kepler 1625b-i are capable of...

The Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) is one of the 176 bird species studied by Navalón et al. Image credit: Free-Photos.

Study Sheds Some New Light on Evolution of Bird Beaks

Jan 25, 2019 by News Staff

The observation that Galapagos finches possessed different beak shapes to obtain different foods was central to the theory of evolution by natural selection,...

Greenwood et al discovered that water was present on Earth at an early stage in its evolution and survived the giant impact, which formed the Moon. This is an artist’s depiction of a catastrophic collision between two celestial bodies; such an impact between the proto-Earth and Theia likely formed the Moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Earth’s Essential Elements for Life Probably Came from Another Planet

Jan 24, 2019 by News Staff

Planetary researchers believe that our Moon was created more than 4.4 billion years ago in a catastrophic collision between proto-Earth and a hypothetical...

An artist’s concept of a dust storm on Titan. Image credit: NASA / ESA / IPGP / Labex UnivEarthS / University Paris Diderot.

‘Cooking’ of Ancient Organics Created Titan’s Mysterious Atmosphere

Jan 24, 2019 by News Staff

New research tackles one of the greatest mysteries about Saturn’s moon Titan: the origin of its present-day nitrogen atmosphere. Published in the Astrophysical...

Due to the local terbium environment in TbInO3, a honeycomb lattice of terbium spins emerges in the crystal structure upon cooling. Image credit: Clark et al, doi: 10.1038/s41567-018-0407-2.

Signs of Exotic ‘Quantum Spin Liquid’ Observed in Unexpected Material

Jan 24, 2019 by News Staff

The perovskite-related metal oxide TbInO3 exhibits an exotic state of matter called quantum spin liquid, according to a team of researchers from the University...

Cortical neuron stained with antibody to neurofilament subunit NF-L in green. Image credit: Gerry Shaw / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Simple Blood Test Detects Signs of Brain Damage in People on Path to Developing Alzheimer’s Disease

Jan 24, 2019 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal Nature Medicine shows that a protein found in the blood can be used to precisely monitor Alzheimer’s disease progression...

Reconstruction of the Draupner wave. Image credit: McAllister et al, doi: 10.1017/jfm.2018.886.

Researchers Recreate Famous Draupner Freak Wave in Lab for First Time

Jan 23, 2019 by News Staff

Freak waves are so called because of their unexpectedly large size relative to the population of smaller waves in which they occur. The 84-foot- (25.6...

Trans-Cortical Vessels: Scientists Discover New Type of Blood Vessel in Long Bones

Jan 23, 2019 by News Staff

The newly-discovered ‘trans-cortical vessels’ connect the bone marrow with the periosteal circulation, according to new research published in the journal...

Beyond Neptune, there is a large disk of small objects, called the Kuiper Belt and beyond that is the Oort Cloud, home of the comets. This artwork shows a section of Kuiper Belt, crowded with the icy cores of potential comets. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Massive Disk of Trans-Neptunian Objects Casts Doubt on Planet Nine

Jan 23, 2019 by News Staff

In 2016, Caltech astronomers showed that six distant solar system objects (2007 TG422, 2013 RF98, 2004 VN112, 2012 VP113, 2012 GB174 and a minor planet...

Reflection-polarization characteristics of the sunlit sticky white-striped brown human model. Image credit: Horvath et al, doi: 10.1098/rsos.181325.

Striped Bodypaintings Deter Blood-Sucking Flies: Study

Jan 23, 2019 by News Staff

Bodypainting is widespread in African, Australian and Papua New Guinean indigenous communities. Many bodypaintings use white or bright stripes on brown...

ESO 577-24 was imaged by the FOcal Reducer/low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The FORS2 instrument captured the bright, central star, Abell 36, as well as the surrounding planetary nebula. The red and blue portions of this image correspond to optical emission at red and blue wavelengths, respectively. An object much closer to home is also visible in this image -- an asteroid wandering across the field of view has left a faint track below and to the left of the central star. And in the far distance behind the nebula a glittering host of background galaxies can be seen. Image credit: ESO.

Ghostly Planetary Nebula Glows in New VLT Image

Jan 22, 2019 by News Staff

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has released an absolutely beautiful photo taken by its Very Large Telescope (VLT) of a planetary nebula called...

An illustration showing what Galagadon nordquistae would have looked like in life, swimming along the river floor. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski, Field Museum.

New Cretaceous Shark Species Discovered in South Dakota

Jan 22, 2019 by News Staff

A new species of freshwater shark that lived about 67 million years ago (Cretaceous period) has been identified from fossilized teeth found in South Dakota. An...

Saturn’s Great Northern Storm churning through the atmosphere in the planet’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This picture, captured on February 25, 2011, was taken about 12 weeks after the storm began, and the clouds by this time had formed a tail that wrapped around the gas giant. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Length of Saturn’s Day Revised: 10 Hours 33 Minutes and 38 Seconds

Jan 22, 2019 by News Staff

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft observed Saturn’s ring system in unprecedented detail, and a team of planetary researchers from the University of California...

The unpleasantness of pain is an emotional phenomenon distinct from pain’s sensory qualities. To study how the brain processes pain-related emotions, Corder et al used neural calcium imaging in freely behaving mice. The team identified brain circuits that respond to pain and directly tested their causal role in motivational behaviors associated with acute and chronic pain. Image credit: Corder et al, doi: 10.1126/science.aap8586.

Neuroscientists Identify Neurons that Make Pain Unpleasant

Jan 22, 2019 by News Staff

Pain sensation and the emotional experience of pain are not the same. A research team at Stanford University has now identified a group of neurons in mice...

This image was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it performed its most recent close flyby of Jupiter on December 21, 2018. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstaedt / Sean Doran.

Juno Sees Two Massive Storms in Jupiter’s Southern Hemisphere

Jan 21, 2019 by News Staff

A stunning new image from NASA’s Juno robotic orbiter shows the famed Great Red Spot and a smaller storm called Oval BA. This image was captured by NASA’s...

This Hubble image shows a giant cluster of galaxies called SDSS J0928+2031. The image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the infrared and optical parts of the spectrum. 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. The image was made as part of the Sloan Giant Arcs Survey Program. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Gladders et al / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

Hubble Spots Massive Lensing Galaxy Cluster

Jan 21, 2019 by News Staff

SDSS J0928+2031, a huge group of galaxies in the constellation of Leo, is so massive that its strong gravity bends light like a giant lens. This Hubble...

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes after an experiment; the lack of red in their guts indicates the compounds repelled the mosquitoes, which chose not to feed. Image credit: Mayur Kajla.

Powerful Mosquito-Repelling Compounds Isolated from Rare Bacterium

Jan 21, 2019 by News Staff

A mixture of mosquito-repelling compounds isolated from a Gram-negative bacterium called Xenorhabdus budapestensis exhibits potent feeding-deterrent activity...

Rocky Super-Earth Found Orbiting Solar-Type Star

Jan 21, 2019 by Natali Anderson

An international team of astronomers has found a ‘super-Earth’ exoplanet orbiting HD 285181, a 3.7-billion-year-old solar-type star approximately 294...

The St Andrews periodic table chart is thought to be the oldest in the world. Image credit: University of St Andrews.

Researchers Find World’s Oldest Classroom Periodic Table

Jan 21, 2019 by News Staff

Scientists at the University of St Andrews, UK, believe they have found the earliest surviving example of a classroom periodic table. The St Andrews periodic...

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