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This image was obtained in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on January 16, 2017, at a distance of about 17,000 miles (28,000 km) from Daphnis. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Provides New View of Saturn’s Wave-Making Moon Daphnis

Jan 20, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn’s small moon Daphnis and the waves it raises in the surrounding ring material. This image was...

A pair of thylacines, a male and female, c. 1905. Image credit: Smithsonian Institutional Archives / E. J. Keller, National Zoological Park.

Thylacine Had Brain Structure Suited to Predatory Life Style

Jan 19, 2017 by News Staff

A duo of researchers from the United States and Australia has used an imaging technique to reconstruct the brain architecture and neural networks of the...

A watercolor drawing of the durian (Durio zibethinus), c. 1819-1823. The drawing is one of 477 natural history drawings of plants and animals of Malacca and Singapore commissioned by William Farquhar.

Chemists Identify Key Compounds Responsible for Durian’s Pungent Odor

Jan 19, 2017 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers in Germany has analyzed a set of stinky and fruity chemical ingredients and found that the overall odor of durian pulp could be mimicked...

This view of a Martian rock slab called ‘Old Soaker,’ which has a network of cracks that may have originated in drying mud, comes from the Mast Camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. The location is within an exposure of Murray formation mudstone on lower Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. Mud cracks would be evidence of a time more than 3 billion years ago when dry intervals interrupted wetter periods that supported lakes in the area. Several images from Mast Camera’s left-eye camera are combined into this mosaic view. They were taken on Dec. 20, 2016, during the 1,555th sol of Curiosity’s work on Mars. The Old Soaker slab is about 4 feet (1.2 m) long. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS.

Curiosity Finds Possible Signs of Ancient Drying on Mars

Jan 18, 2017 by News Staff

A grid of small polygons spotted by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover may have originated as cracks in drying mud more than 3 billion years ago, according...

An artist’s impression showing the increasing effect of ram-pressure stripping in removing gas from the spiral galaxy NGC 4921 and its satellite galaxies. Image credit: ICRAR / NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA.

‘Ram-Pressure Stripping’ Shuts Off Star Formation in Galaxies, Astronomers Say

Jan 18, 2017 by News Staff

According to a new study published this week in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a phenomenon called ram-pressure stripping is more...

$‘Clam-shell’ view of Side A (top) and B showing black dendrites against the background of the brown mudstone. The flake, only shown re-attached on Side A, is the result of a post-excavation fracture of the specimen. Arrows point to large inclusion visible on Sides A and B. Image credit: Davorka Radovčić et al, doi: 10.1016/j.crpv.2016.04.013.$

Neanderthals Capable of Incorporating Symbolic Objects into Their Culture, Discovery Suggests

Jan 18, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

An unusual limestone rock found at an archaeological site in Croatia indicates that Neanderthals were capable of incorporating symbolic objects into their...

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of HIV-1, grown in cultured lymphocytes; virions are seen as small spheres on the surface of the cells. Image credit: C. Goldsmith.

Recently-Discovered Antiviral Protein Inhibits HIV-1 in Non-Human Primates

Jan 18, 2017 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered that a gene called SLFN11 — which encodes a protein known as Schlafen...

A map of the whole disc of the Sun was also made with a single ALMA antenna, using a technique called fast-scanning, at a wavelength of 1.25 mm. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO.

ALMA Captures Its First Images of Sun

Jan 17, 2017 by News Staff

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope has been used to study the Sun for the first time. The new ALMA images reveal otherwise...

Roasted beans of Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica). Image credit: University of California, Davis.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Arabica Coffee

Jan 17, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of researchers led by University of California, Davis, geneticists has publicly released the first public genome sequence of Arabica...

This composite image shows IC 3639, a galaxy with an active galactic nucleus. Image credit: ESO / NASA / JPL-Caltech / STScI.

NuSTAR Finds Two Enormous Black Holes in Milky Way’s Neighborhood

Jan 17, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission has identified two gas-enshrouded supermassive black holes, located at the centers of nearby...

A model highlighting the specification of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to epicardial lineages by stage-specific modulation of canonical Wnt signaling and the long-term maintenance of hPSC-derived epicardial cells using TGF-β-signalling inhibitors. Image credit: X. Bao et al, doi: 10.1038/s41551-016-0003.

Scientists Use Human Pluripotent Stem Cells to Regenerate Epicardium

Jan 17, 2017 by News Staff

A process using human stem cells can generate heart cells belonging to the external layer, the epicardium, according to an international team of scientists...

Top: cut marks on a horse mandible from Bluefish Cave II; the specimen is dated to 19,650 years before present; the bone surface is a bit weathered and altered by root etching but the cut marks are well preserved; they are located on the medial side, under the third and second molars, and are associated with the removal of the tongue using a stone tool. Bottom: cut marks on a caribou coxal bone from Bluefish Cave II; the specimen is dated to 18,570 years before present and shows straight and parallel marks resulting from filleting activity. Image credit: L. Bourgeon et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169486.

Humans Arrived in North America around 24,000 Years Ago

Jan 16, 2017 by News Staff

Humans first arrived in North America 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to an analysis of ancient animal bones found in northern...

The ruby seadragon (Phyllopteryx dewysea). Image credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography / Western Australia Museum.

Ruby Seadragon Filmed Alive in Ocean for First Time

Jan 16, 2017 by Natali Anderson

A team of marine biologists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Western Australia Museum has captured on video the first-ever field sighting...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft obtained this image of Mimas on Oct. 22, 2016. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute.

Cassini Captures Breathtaking View of Saturn’s Moon Mimas

Jan 16, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

This image of Saturn’s seventh largest moon, Mimas, was photographed when NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was approximately 115,000 miles (185,000 km) away. NASA’s...

This Hubble image shows part of the sky in the constellation of Sagittarius. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Sees Brilliant Stars in Sagittarius

Jan 16, 2017 by News Staff

This colorful view of Milky Way was captured when the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope pointed its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) towards the constellation...

The six most common elements of life on Earth (including more than 97% of the mass of a human body) are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus. The colors in the spectra show dips, the size of which reveal the amount of these elements in the atmosphere of a star. The human body on the left uses the same color coding to evoke the important role these elements play in different parts of our bodies, from oxygen in our lungs to phosphorous in our bones (although in reality all elements are found all across the body). In the background is an artist’s impression of the Galaxy, with cyan dots to show the APOGEE measurements of the oxygen abundance in different stars; brighter dots indicate higher oxygen abundance. Image credit: Dana Berry / SkyWorks Digital Inc / SDSS.

Astronomers Map ‘Elements of Life’ in Milky Way Galaxy

Jan 14, 2017 by News Staff

At the 229th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Jan. 5, 2017, astronomers from the SDSS/APOGEE (Sloan Digital Sky Survey/Apache Point Observatory...

Brattas et al. report that ERVs are bound by TRIM28 in human neural progenitor cells. This results in the establishment of local heterochromatin that affects nearby gene expression, suggesting a role for ERVs in the control of transcriptional networks in the developing human brain. Interestingly, ERVs bound by TRIM28 are mostly enriched for elements that integrated around 35–55 million years ago, thus not binding to the most recent ERVs as well as ancient elements. Image credit: Per Ludvik Brattas et al, doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2016.12.010.

Study: Endogenous Retroviruses in Genome Important for Human Brain

Jan 13, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

About 8% of the human genome is composed of endogenous retroviruses. According to a new study published in the journal Cell Reports, these retroviruses...

An adult female of the Skywalker hoolock gibbon (Hoolock tianxing). Image credit: Fan Peng-Fei.

Hoolock tianxing: New Species of Gibbon Discovered in Myanmar and China

Jan 13, 2017 by Natali Anderson

A new species of hoolock gibbon has been discovered in eastern Myanmar and southwestern China by an international team of scientists from the United States,...

The Anglo-Saxon claw beaker. Image credit: Oxford Archaeology.

Archaeologists Unearth 1,500-Year-Old Settlement, Precious Jewelry in England

Jan 13, 2017 by News Staff

Archaeologists from Oxford Archaeology working at Cherry Hinton in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, have uncovered a wealth of Roman and Anglo-Saxon...