Page 500 | Sci.News: Breaking Science News

Illustration of a supersolid state, in which the properties of a frictionless fluid and a crystalline state coincide. Image credit: Julian Léonard, ETH Zurich.

Supersolid: Physicists Create New State of Matter

Mar 4, 2017 by News Staff

Two teams of physicists have independently created a mysterious new state of matter. The state is known as a supersolid and it combines the properties...

This is an artist’s rendition of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). Image credit: Flying Puffin / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Wrangel Island Mammoths Experienced ‘Genomic Meltdown’ Just Prior to Extinction, Says New Study

Mar 3, 2017 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal PLoS Genetics, dwindling populations created a ‘mutational meltdown’ in the genomes of the last wooly...

Blue skies on Pluto. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

The Secrets of Pluto’s Thin Blue Line

Mar 3, 2017 by James Romero

“Like a summer’s evening here on Earth just after sunset. A faint blue glow follows the Sun below the horizon — the only bit of color within...

Reconstruction of Darwinylus marcosi on a gymnosperm host. Based on the pollen grains found in the amber with the beetle, paleobiologists believe that the beetle was closely associated with cycads, an ancient gymnosperm group of plants that have living relatives today throughout the warmer parts of the world. Image credit: Enrique Peñalver / Museo Geominero, Instituto Geológico y Minero de Espana.

105-Million-Year-Old Amber Preserves Pollinating Beetle, Pollen

Mar 3, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of paleobiologists has uncovered the fossil of a 105-million-year-old gymnosperm pollinating beetle, named Darwinylus marcosi. The...

Artist impression illustrating a supermassive black hole with X-ray emission emanating from its inner region (pink) and ultra-fast winds streaming from the surrounding disk (purple). Image credit: ESA.

XMM-Newton, NuSTAR Telescopes Measure Temperature Swings of Black Hole Winds

Mar 2, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, researchers have measured rapidly varying temperatures in hot gas flowing from the vicinity of a black hole. Artist impression illustrating...

This is a three-color composite image of Saturn and its rings taken January 23, 2008 with the COMICS instrument on the Subaru Telescope. The Cassini Division and the C ring appear bright. Color differences reflect the temperatures; the warmer part is blue, the cooler part is red. Image credit: NAOJ.

Researchers Measure Brightness, Temperatures of Saturn’s Main Rings

Mar 2, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using mid-infrared data from the 8.2-m Subaru Telescope, a research team led by Dr. Hideaki Fujiwara, Subaru scientist at the National Astronomical Observatory...

African elephants. Image credit: Ro Dobby.

Shortest-Sleeping Mammal? African Elephants Sleep Only Two Hours Per Day

Mar 2, 2017 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal PLoS ONE has revealed that wild African elephants (Loxodonta africana) sleep an average of two hours a day and regularly...

Abell 2744 takes on a ghostly look where total starlight has been artificially colored blue in this Hubble view. Image credit: NASA / ESA / IAC / HFF Team / STScI.

Astrophysicists Unveil Most Detailed Maps of Dark Matter to Date

Mar 2, 2017 by News Staff

A team of astrophysicists led by Yale Professor Priyamvada Natarajan has unveiled the most detailed maps to date of dark matter, offering a detailed case...

An artist’s conception of a free-floating planet-like object. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

Astronomers Hunt for Free-Floating Planetary-Mass Objects in Solar Neighborhood

Mar 1, 2017 by News Staff

There may be a large number of undetected giant planet-like bodies in the neighborhood of our Sun, according to a Carnegie-led team of astronomers from...

Hematite tubes from the NSB hydrothermal vent deposits that represent the oldest microfossils and evidence for life on Earth. Image credit: Matthew Dodd, University College London.

World’s Oldest Known Fossils Found in Canada Push Evidence for Life back by 70 Million Years

Mar 1, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists has discovered in Quebec, Canada, the oldest physical evidence of life on Earth — fossils that date back...

This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 1055. This large galaxy appears to lack the whirling arms characteristic of a spiral, as it is seen edge-on; however, it displays odd twists in its structure that were probably caused by an interaction with a large neighboring galaxy, Messier 77. The VLT observed NGC 1055 with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument using visible-light filters. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Spies Spiral Galaxy Edge-On

Mar 1, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) gives a detailed view of NGC 1055, an edge-on spiral galaxy. This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy...

This artist’s illustration depicts what astronomers call a tidal disruption event. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss.

Tidal Disruption Events Occur More Frequently than Thought

Feb 28, 2017 by News Staff

According to a team of astronomers at the University of Sheffield, UK, stars are ripped apart by supermassive black holes 100 times more often than previously...

Pro.f Braswell holds a replica of the Maya jade pendant. Image credit: Erik Jepsen, University of California, San Diego Publications.

Remarkable Maya Pendant Unearthed in Belize

Feb 28, 2017 by News Staff

A team of archaeologists led by Geoffrey Braswell, Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, has found a remarkable artifact...

Sound-shaping metamaterial bricks and the grid to contain them. Image credit: Gianluca Memoli et al, doi: 10.1038/ncomms14608.

Researchers Invent Sound-Shaping Metamaterial

Feb 28, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the Universities of Sussex and Bristol, UK, has invented the first metamaterial that easily bends, shapes and focuses sound...

This image of the object F16QA was obtained using Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on Feb. 5, 2017, at a distance of 610,000 miles (982,000 km) from the F ring. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

NASA’s Cassini Orbiter Spots Two Small Objects in Saturn’s F Ring

Feb 28, 2017 by News Staff

As Cassini continues its ring-grazing orbits, diving just past the outside of Saturn’s F ring, the outermost discrete ring of the planet, it is tracking...

A disc of rocky debris from a disrupted planetesimal surrounds the white dwarf-brown dwarf binary system SDSS 1557. Image credit: Mark Garlick, University College London, University of Warwick and University of Sheffield.

Planetary Debris Disk Detected around White Dwarf-Brown Dwarf System

Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff

Evidence of planetary debris surrounding a white dwarf and its substellar companion has been found by a University College London-led international team...

Watching birds near your home is good for mental health. Image credit: Tim Felce / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Watching Birds, Trees near Your Home is Good for Mental Health, Study Shows

Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff

According to a study led by University of Exeter researcher Daniel Cox, people living in neighborhoods with more birds, shrubs and trees are less likely...

This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy UGC 12591, located roughly 400 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Captures Image of Remarkable Galaxy UGC 12591

Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has delivered a stunning snapshot of the strange giant galaxy UGC 12591. This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera...

A block from Abri Cellier with identifiable representation: a mammoth. Image credit: Randall White et al, doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2017.02.001.

Archaeologists Uncover 38,000-Year-Old Pointillist Engravings

Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff

Pointillism — a painting technique in which dots are used to create the illusion of a larger image — was developed in the 1880s by Georges...