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LiDAR Survey Reveals Numerous Ancient Maya Structures in Guatemalan Jungle

The ancient Maya city of Tikal in Guatemala. Image credit: Comenius University.
Feb 22, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

An ambitious LiDAR (light detection and ranging) survey of forested areas in Guatemala has revealed more than 60,000 previously undetected ancient structures, including isolated houses, large palaces, ceremonial centers, and stone pyramids. The ancient Maya city of Tikal in Guatemala. Image credit: Comenius University. LiDAR technology is able to pierce through thick forest canopy and map features on the Earth’s surface. The maps can often reveal...

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In the new technique, an additional hexagonal ring of carbon atoms is fused to the zigzag edge of an existing carbon-rich molecule in two quick steps. Image credit: Igor Alabugin.

Chemists Find New Way to Synthesize ‘Olympic Ring’ Molecule

Feb 21, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers at Florida State University has unlocked a new strategy for synthesizing of olympicene (a molecule consisting of five rings that...

This color-enhanced image shows swirling cloud formations in the northern area of Jupiter’s north temperate belt. The image was taken on February 7 at 8:42 a.m. EST (5:42 a.m. PST), as Juno performed its eleventh close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 5,086 miles (8,186 km) from the tops of the clouds of the planet at a latitude of 39.9 degrees. Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed this image using data from the JunoCam imager. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Kevin M. Gill.

NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Completes Eleventh Jupiter Flyby, Delivers New Photos

Feb 21, 2018 by News Staff

NASA’s Juno orbiter successfully made its eleventh flyby of Jupiter on February 7, 2018. This color-enhanced image shows swirling cloud formations in...

A reconstruction of Early Cretaceous Maryland featuring Acrocanthosaurus. Image credit: Chase D. Brownstein.

New Research Sheds Light on Dinosaurs of ‘Lost Landmass’ of Appalachia

Feb 21, 2018 by News Staff

Around 90 million years ago, eastern and western North America were isolated from each other by a salty sea, creating two landmasses: Appalachia and Laramidia....

A massive black hole can be seen at the center of a faraway galaxy in this artist’s concept. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Find Ultramassive Black Holes in Distant Cluster Galaxies

Feb 21, 2018 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found evidence for what is likely the most massive black holes ever detected. A massive black...

Cheddar Man’s facial reconstruction. Image credit: University College London / Natural History Museum, London / Tom Barnes / Channel 4.

Cheddar Man’s Face Revealed

Feb 20, 2018 by News Staff

Cheddar Man — a hunter-gatherer who lived 10,000 years ago — had blue eyes, dark colored curly hair and ‘dark to black’ skin pigmentation,...

DES16C2nm. Image credit: M. Smith / DES Collaboration.

Astronomers Spot Most Distant Supernova Yet: DES16C2nm

Feb 20, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have discovered a supernova that occurred 10.5 billion years ago, when the Universe was less than a quarter of its present age. DES16C2nm....

First comprehensive map of butterfly evolution: branch support is color coded according to the support thresholds indicated on the legend, and the shape indicates whether the branch was supported using one or more methods; pie charts on certain nodes in Lycaenidae and Riodinidae indicate the probability of ant association (red) and no ant association (blue) based on ancestral state reconstruction; ants before tribe/subfamily names indicate at least one ant-associated species in the group; question marks denote taxa for which no data on ant association could be found. POLYOMMAT, PL – Polyommatinae, TH – Theclinae, PORITI – Poritiinae, NEM – Nemeobiinae, HED – Hedylidae, PARN – Parnassiinae, PAP – Papilionidae. Image credit: Espeland et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.061.

Scientists Complete Butterfly Evolutionary Tree

Feb 20, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of lepidopterists has compiled the most comprehensive evolutionary tree for butterflies to date. The results appear in the journal...

This high-resolution scanning electron microscope image shows an unusual tube-like structural form that is less than 1/100th the width of a human hair in size found in the Martian meteorite ALH84001. Image credit: NASA.

How Will Humanity React to Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life?

Feb 20, 2018 by News Staff

How will humans react to the discovery of alien life? Speculation on this topic abounds, but empirical research is practically non-existent. In a paper...

The pilot study data suggest an abnormally high prevalence of pain in Meru, Kenya, and that monosodium glutamate intake, combined with dehydration, may be contributing to chronic widespread pain in this region. Image credit: Gerd Altmann.

Glutamate Consumption Enhances Chronic Pain Symptoms, Study Says

Feb 20, 2018 by News Staff

A new pilot study, carried our in Kenya, has found a link between chronic pain and consumption of monosodium glutamate, a common flavor and taste enhancer...

Rhynia gwynne-vaughanii, 400 million-year-old fossil plant stem from Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Image credit: Natural History Museum, London.

Study: First Land Plants Appeared 500 Million Years Ago

Feb 19, 2018 by News Staff

According to a new study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the first plants to colonize the Earth originated around...

Australian

New Species of Pygmy Squid Discovered

Feb 19, 2018 by Natali Anderson

James Cook University researcher Dr. Jan Strugnell and Australian Museum Research Institute’s Dr. Mandy Reid have discovered and described a new species...

This image shows a distant and pulsating giant star known as R Sculptoris. Image credit: M. Wittkowski / ESO.

Giant Star R Sculptoris Sheds Its ‘Skin’

Feb 19, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have discovered that a giant star called R Sculptoris is surrounded by giant ‘clumps’ of stellar dust that are peeling away from the shedding...

Liang et al demonstrated that photons can be made to interact. Image credit: Christine Daniloff / MIT.

Researchers Create New Kind of Photonic Matter

Feb 19, 2018 by News Staff

A team of physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere has created a new kind of photonic matter that could enable quantum...

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Shrinking Dark Spot on Neptune

Feb 19, 2018 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of a large, dark storm on Neptune shrinking out of existence. This series of Hubble images taken...

Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster as seen by the ATLAS telescope. Image credit: University of Hawaii.

Astronomers Spot Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster in Flight

Feb 17, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope on Mauna Loa in Hawaii have captured images of the Tesla Roadster...

Women cleaning at home or working as occupational cleaners had accelerated decline in lung function, suggesting that exposures related to cleaning activities may constitute a risk to long-term respiratory health. Image credit: Yerson Retamal.

Study: Lung Function Declines Faster in Women Who Use Cleaning Products

Feb 16, 2018 by News Staff

Women who regularly use cleaning sprays or other cleaning products appear to experience a greater decline in lung function over time than women who do...

After detecting the first exoplanets in the 1990s it has become clear that planets around other stars are the rule rather than the exception and there are likely hundreds of billions of exoplanets in the Milky Way alone. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / ESO / M. Kornmesser.

NASA’s K2 Mission Discovers 95 New Extrasolar Planets

Feb 16, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers using data from NASA’s extended Kepler mission, known as K2, have discovered 95 new exoplanets, with sizes ranging from mostly rocky super-Earths...

Young Tasmanian devil. Image credit: Keres H. / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Wild Populations of Tasmanian Devils Continue to Decline, Study Shows

Feb 16, 2018 by News Staff

The overall population numbers of wild Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) are continuing to decline, due to the presence of a transmissible cancer,...

The Andromeda Galaxy. Image credit: Ivan Bok / CC BY 4.0.

Andromeda Galaxy is Roughly the Same Mass as Milky Way, Astronomers Say

Feb 16, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers have long thought that the Andromeda Galaxy was 2-3 times the mass and size of the Milky Way, and that our own Galaxy would ultimately be engulfed...

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