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An artistic interpretation of Sinosauropteryx prima in the likely open habitat in which it lived 125 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous epoch. Image credit: Robert Nicholls.

Early Cretaceous Feathered Dinosaur Had ‘Bandit Mask’ and Striped Tail

Oct 27, 2017 by News Staff

University of Bristol paleontologists and natural history artist Robert Nicholls have revealed how Sinosauropteryx prima — a small theropod dinosaur...

Artist’s impression of the comet passing a distant star. Image credit: Danielle Futselaar.

Short-Period Exocomets Found around Distant Young Star

Oct 27, 2017 by News Staff

A team of professional and amateur astronomers using data from NASA’s Kepler mission has spotted the dusty tails of six exocomets orbiting KIC 3542116,...

Itokawa’s curious, varied terrain and lack of impact craters indicate it is a rubble pile asteroid. Image credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Asteroid Itokawa Had Violent Past, Planetary Researchers Say

Oct 26, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research has shed light on the collisional history of one of the most famous asteroids. Itokawa’s curious, varied terrain and lack of impact craters...

This Hubble image shows the massive galaxy cluster Abell S1063. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Lotz, STScI.

Hubble Detects Wobbling Galaxies within Massive Galaxy Clusters

Oct 26, 2017 by News Staff

Galaxy clusters are among the most massive structures in the Universe. Every galaxy cluster contains a galaxy that is brighter than the other members,...

Xinicaulis lignescens. The largest silicified trunk in the field, with a maximum diameter of 70 cm: oblique transverse (left) and lateral (right) views. The trunk is about 1 m long in preserved length. Image credit: Xu et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1708241114.

374-Million-Year-Old Tree Trunks Reveal Unique Growth Strategy

Oct 26, 2017 by News Staff

Massive, exceptionally well-preserved cladoxylopsid tree trunks found in Xinjiang, China, have revealed an interconnected web of woody strands (xylem)...

Dr. Knoll lies next to the exceptionally large carnivorous dinosaur footprints found in Lesotho. Image credit: Fabien Knoll.

Footprints of Megatheropod Dinosaur Found in Lesotho

Oct 26, 2017 by News Staff

Footprints of a previously unknown, very large carnivorous dinosaur have been found on an ancient land surface — known as a palaeosurface —...

Structure of the skin. Image credit: OpenStax College / CC BY 3.0.

Study: Skin Helps Regulate Blood Pressure and Heart Rate

Oct 26, 2017 by News Staff

In a new study published in the journal eLife, Dr. Andrew Cowburn of the University of Cambridge and co-authors show that skin helps regulate blood pressure...

Countless galaxies vie for attention in this VST image of the Fornax Cluster (also known as ACO S 373 and MCL 52), some appearing only as pinpricks of light while others dominate the foreground. One of these is the lenticular galaxy NGC 1316. Image credit: A. Grado & L. Limatola, ESO.

ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope Captures Best View Ever of Fornax Cluster

Oct 25, 2017 by News Staff

One of the largest and most detailed images of the Fornax Cluster ever created has been released by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Countless...

IODP-ICDP Expedition 364 drilled into the subsurface Chicxulub peak ring at borehole M0077A (red dot), which was about 30 km northwest of Progreso and the north shore of the Yucatán Peninsula. The blue circle represents the approximate diameter of the 180-200-km subsurface impact structure. The gravity signature of the structure and locations of other drilling sites are shown in the inset. The only two sites with continuous core are the ICDP Yaxcopoil-1 (Yax-1) and IODP-ICDP M0077A boreholes. Other boreholes are Yucatán-1 (Y1), Yucatán-2 (Y2), Yucatán-6 (Y6), Chicxulub-1 (C1), Sacapuc-1 (S1), and Ticul-1 (T1). Image credit: Kring et al, doi: 10.1130/GSATG352A.1.

Geologists Return from Expedition to Chicxulub Impact Crater

Oct 25, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Chicxulub crater is the only well-preserved peak-ring crater on Earth and linked to the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, an event 65 million years...

This artist’s painting of the south polar region of Enceladus shows massive jets of water ice being blasted into space. Image credit: Karl Kofoed / NASA.

Saturn Moons Stained by Enceladus’ ‘Ingredients for Life’

Oct 25, 2017 by James Romero

Weathered organic material once dissolved in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean is coating Saturn’s inner moons, explaining surprising variations in their...

The Eurasian shrew (Sorex araneus). Image credit: Karol Zub.

Eurasian Shrews’ Skulls Shrink with Season, Study Shows

Oct 25, 2017 by News Staff

According to a study led by Dr. Javier Lazaro of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, the skulls of Eurasian shrews (Sorex araneus) shrink in anticipation...

Artist’s impression of Zeta Puppis, an O-type star approximately 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. Image credit: Tahina Ramiaramanantsoa.

Huge Bright Spots on Supergiant Star Zeta Puppis Drive Spirals in Its Extremely Strong Stellar Wind

Oct 24, 2017 by News Staff

Zeta Puppis, also known as Naos, is a blue supergiant star, one of the most luminous stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. It is about 60 times more massive than...

Barley (Hordeum vulgare). Image credit: Cliff.

Cereal Domestication May Have Started 10,000 Years Earlier than Scientists Thought

Oct 24, 2017 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, ancient peoples began to systemically affect the evolution...

A reconstruction of a Neanderthal man. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.

Despite Deafness, Missing Forearm and Limp, This Neanderthal Lived into His Forties

Oct 24, 2017 by News Staff

An older adult male Neanderthal from the Late Pleistocene, who had suffered multiple injuries, became deaf and must have relied on social support from...

This illustration depicts a 3D computer-generated image of a group of Escherichia coli. Image credit: James Archer, CDC.

Study Challenges Long-Held Evolutionary Theory

Oct 24, 2017 by News Staff

Researchers involved in the E. coli long-term evolution experiment (LTEE) have debunked an established evolutionary theory with a study that provides a...

Machaeropterus eckelberryi. Image credit: Andy Kratter, Florida Museum of Natural History.

New Bird Species Discovered in Peru: Machaeropterus eckelberryi

Oct 24, 2017 by Natali Anderson

A new species of manakin, called Machaeropterus eckelberryi, has been discovered in the foothills of southwestern Loreto and northern San Martín departments,...

Amalthea casts a shadow on Jupiter in this image captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft; the elongated shape of the shadow is a result of both the location of Amalthea with relation to Jupiter in this image as well as the irregular shape of the small moon itself. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstaedt.

Amalthea Casts Shadow on Jupiter

Oct 23, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

On September 1, 2017, NASA’s Juno spacecraft witnessed a remarkable cosmic event — a small Jovian moon called Amalthea blocked the sunlight and...

Dawn data show a region around Ceres’ Ernutet crater where organic concentrations have been discovered; the color coding shows the surface concentration of organics, as inferred from the visible and near infrared spectrometer; the inset shows a higher resolution enhanced color image of the crater acquired by Dawn’s framing camera; regions in red indicate higher concentration of organics. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / ASI / INAF / MPS / DLR / IDA.

New Research Reveals Origin of Ceres’ Organic Matter

Oct 23, 2017 by News Staff

Organic-rich materials found on Ceres by NASA’s Dawn orbiter are native to the dwarf planet, according to new research led by Southwest Research Institute...

3,250-year-old cuneiform tablets were found inside a clay vessel at the archaeological site of Bassetki in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Image credit: Peter Pfälzner, University of Tübingen.

Archaeologists Find Cache of Assyrian Cuneiform Tablets in Iraq

Oct 23, 2017 by News Staff

Excavations led by a University of Tübingen archaeologist at the site of a recently-discovered Bronze Age settlement in the Kurdistan region of Iraq have...