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Artist’s rendering of what Ekwiiyemakius walshi, Gunnelltarsius randalli and Brontomomys cerutti might have looked like. Image credit: Randy Kirk, University of Texas at Austin.

Paleontologists Discover Three New Fossil Primates

Aug 29, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists at the University of Texas at Austin have identified three new species of omomyine primates that lived between 42 and 46 million years...

A reconstruction of a rosehip neuron. Image credit: Tamas Lab, University of Szeged.

New Type of Human Neuron Discovered: Rosehip Neuron

Aug 29, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of neuroscientists from the United States and Hungary has uncovered a new type of human brain cell that has never been seen in mice...

Illustration of a female Xenomorphia resurrecta ovipositing into a puparium. Image credit: van de Kamp et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05654-y.

Researchers Find Ancient Parasitic Wasps in Fossil Fly Pupae

Aug 29, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

A research team led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology scientist Thomas van de Kamp has found ancient parasitoid wasps lurking inside 55 mineralized...

A candidate event display for the production of a Higgs boson decaying to two bottom quarks (blue cones), in association with a W boson decaying to a muon (red) and a neutrino. The neutrino leaves the detector unseen, and is reconstructed through the missing transverse energy (dashed line). Image credit: ATLAS Collaboration / CERN.

Physicists Observe Long-Sought Decay of Higgs Boson to Bottom Quarks

Aug 28, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have observed the Higgs boson decaying into a pair of bottom quarks...

Strotz et al focused on the high-resolution record of Pliocene to recent mollusks from the Western Atlantic.

Evolution Favors ‘Survival of Laziest,’ Mollusk Study Suggests

Aug 28, 2018 by News Staff

A study of Pliocene to recent bivalves and gastropods from the Western Atlantic suggests laziness might be a fruitful strategy for survival of individuals,...

Top: flowers and seeds of the Chinese violet cress (Orychophragmus violaceus). Bottom: the structures of mono and diunsaturated Nebraskanic (1) and Wuhanic (2) fatty acids; segments of the methyl wuhanate (2a) with fully assigned 13C and 1H resonances are denoted by red boxes and numbered carbons. Image credit: Li et al, doi: 10.1038/s41477-018-0225-7.

Two New ‘Unusual’ Fatty Acids Discovered

Aug 28, 2018 by News Staff

A research team led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Huazhong Agricultural University has identified two new fatty acids — named Nebraskanic...

The Bahama nuthatch (Sitta insularis). Image credit: Matthew Gardner, University of East Anglia.

Bahama Nuthatch: Scientists Rediscover Elusive Bird Species in the Bahamas

Aug 28, 2018 by News Staff

A highly endangered species of bird called the Bahama nuthatch (Sitta insularis) has been rediscovered by two international teams of ornithologists searching...

There are many ways alcohol may cause cancer including directly damaging DNA, increasing levels of certain hormones and damaging the liver. Image credit: Laura M.

Study: There is No Safe Level of Drinking Alcohol

Aug 28, 2018 by News Staff

Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. A new study has found that the risk of all-cause mortality,...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is on a mission to explore the asteroid Bennu and return a sample to Earth. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft Spies Its Target Asteroid

Aug 27, 2018 by News Staff

After an almost two-year journey through space, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx)...

Xu et al report two new Early Cretaceous alvarezsaurian theropods representing transitional stages in alvarezsaurian evolution. The analyses indicate that the evolutionary transition from a typical theropod forelimb configuration to a highly specialized one was slow and occurred in a mosaic fashion during the Cretaceous period. Image credit: Xu et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.057.

Two New Alvarezsaurian Dinosaurs Unearthed in China

Aug 27, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists in China have found fossil fragments from two new dinosaur species — named Xiyunykus pengi and Bannykus wulatensis — that walked...

This Hubble image shows the planetary nebula NGC 3918. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Several 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.

Hubble Sees Spectacular Cosmic Eye: NGC 3918

Aug 27, 2018 by News Staff

NASA has released a beautiful photo snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the planetary nebula NGC 3918. This Hubble image shows the planetary...

Immune cells gather at the SPF. The purple band represents the surface of the SPF. Image credit: Imogen Moran / Tri Giang Phan.

Researchers Discover New ‘Micro-Organ’ in Human Immune System

Aug 27, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Australia, has identified a new anatomical structure within the human immune system....

Hippocampus japapigu, Hachijo-jima Island, Izu Islands, Japan from 33 feet (10 m) depth. Image credit: Richard Smith.

New Species of Pygmy Seahorse Discovered: Hippocampus japapigu

Aug 27, 2018 by Natali Anderson

An international team of marine biologists has discovered a new species of the seahorse genus Hippocampus in the waters off southeast Japan. Hippocampus...

The distribution of satellite galaxies orbiting a computer-simulated galaxy, as predicted by the Lambda-cold-dark-matter cosmological model. Ultra-faint satellites are amongst the most ancient galaxies in the Universe; they began to form when the Universe was only about 100 million years old. Image credit: Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University / Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies / Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.

Milky Way’s Ultra-Faint Satellites are Some of Universe’s Oldest Galaxies, Astronomers Say

Aug 24, 2018 by News Staff

A team of astronomers from the United States and the United Kingdom has found evidence that Milky Way’s faintest satellites — including dwarf galaxies...

An artist’s depiction of Eorhynchochelys sinensis as it would have appeared in life 228 million years ago in China. Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

228-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals Complex Early History of Turtles

Aug 24, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists in China have discovered a 228-million-year-old extinct species of turtle, known for its weird disc-like body without a shell and its toothless...

Artist’s impression of a cloud of trapped antihydrogen atoms. Image credit: Chukman So.

CERN Physicists Observe Lyman-alpha Transition in Antihydrogen

Aug 24, 2018 by News Staff

Physicists from the ALPHA Collaboration at CERN have detected the Lyman-alpha transition — when the hydrogen electron transitions between the lowest-energy...

Mazor et al showed that, in rodents, obesity induced matrix MMP-2 activation in the hypothalamus. In turn, MMP-2 activation reduced leptin-mediated signaling by promoting leptin receptor degradation. MMP-2 deletion in the hypothalamus increased leptin receptor expression and reduced fat accumulation in mice fed a high-fat diet. Image credit: Mazor et al, doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aah6324.

Researchers Discover Destructive Mechanism that Causes ‘Leptin Resistance’ Phenomenon

Aug 24, 2018 by News Staff

Obesity is associated with increased blood concentrations of the anorexigenic hormone leptin; however, obese individuals are resistant to its anorexigenic...

This artist’s impression shows how the gas giant exoplanet inside the disc of Beta Pictoris may look. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Astronomers Measure Mass of Young Exoplanet Beta Pictoris b

Aug 24, 2018 by News Staff

A duo of astronomers at Leiden University in the Netherlands has deduced the mass of Beta Pictoris b from the motion of its parent star, which lies 63...

The blue-and-yellow macaw (Ara ararauna) in flight. Image credit: Luc Viatour, Lucnix.be / CC BY 2.0.

Blue-and-Yellow Macaws Communicate Visually with Blushing, Ruffled Feathers: Study

Aug 23, 2018 by News Staff

Blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) ruffle their head feathers and blush to communicate visually, according to new research from the ZooParc de Beauval...