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Fossiliferous mudstone containing Tortotubus protuberans. Image credit: Martin R. Smith.

Scientist Finds Fossil of Oldest Known Fungus

Mar 2, 2016 by News Staff

According to Dr. Martin Smith, a paleontologist at Durham University, UK, a fossil dating from the Silurian period of the Palaeozoic era, about 440 million...

VLT Survey Telescope Captures Vast Nebula Illuminated by Giant Stars

Mar 2, 2016 by News Staff

RCW 106, a vast cloud of gas and dust, along with its rich and fascinating surroundings, are captured in this incredible photo from ESO’s VLT Survey...

At the top are shown drawings illustrating the seven hair features examined in this study; thick lines connect these features with the candidate genes identified in regions with single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) reaching genome-wide significant association. At the bottom is shown a composite Manhattan plot displaying all significantly associated SNPs for the hair features examined; the rs number of the SNP with the smallest P value is shown at the top of each association peak. Image credit: Kaustubh Adhikari et al., doi: 10.1038/ncomms10815.

Researchers Identify Gene for Gray Hair: IRF4

Mar 1, 2016 by News Staff

The first gene identified for graying hair has been discovered by an international team of researchers. At the top are shown drawings illustrating the...

An artist’s drawing of the abelisaur. Image credit: Davide Bonadonna / Imperial College London.

Paleontologists Determine Size of Rare Cretaceous Dinosaur

Mar 1, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

A partially preserved femur from the Kem Kem beds of Morocco has revealed the size of a large-bodied theropod dinosaur called abelisaur. An artist’s...

Mars’ moon Phobos as observed by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / CU /LASP.

Phobos in Ultraviolet: Latest Photo from NASA’s MAVEN Spacecraft

Mar 1, 2016 by News Staff

This false-color image of Phobos, the larger and inner of the two natural satellites of Mars, was taken by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph instrument...

Complete specimen of Chengjiangocaris kunmingensis and morphological reconstruction. Image credit: Jie Yang, Yunnan University / Javier Ortega-Hernández, University of Cambridge.

Paleontologists Find 520 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Central Nervous System

Feb 29, 2016 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists led by Yunnan University scientist Xi-guang Zhang has unearthed one of the oldest fossils of the central nervous system yet found. Complete...

The emission-line star Hen 2-80 (center) and surroundings. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, www.geckzilla.com.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Sees Unusual Star

Feb 29, 2016 by News Staff

The subject of this Hubble image is Hen 2-80, a star located in the constellation Crux at a distance of approximately 2,300 light-years away from Earth. The...

Solar System and the interstellar medium. Image credit: NASA / IBEX / Adler Planetarium.

Scientists Determine Strength, Direction of Local Interstellar Magnetic Field

Feb 29, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX), researchers have accurately determined the strength and direction of the magnetic field...

Rafflesia consueloae. Image credit: Edwino S. Fernando.

Rafflesia consueloae: New Species of Giant Rafflesia Discovered

Feb 27, 2016 by Natali Anderson

A new species of the plant genus Rafflesia – R. consueloae — has been described from the Philippine Island of Luzon by a team of scientists led...

Vast canyons on Pluto’s north pole: the widest of the canyons is marked in yellow; smaller canyons are green; the valleys are blue and pink; irregularly-shaped pits are red. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Sees Canyons on North Pole of Pluto

Feb 26, 2016 by News Staff

This enhanced color image of Pluto’s north polar area was taken by New Horizons’ Ralph/Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera on July 14, 2015, from...

X(5568). Image credit: V.M. Abazov et al. / Fermilab.

Physicists Discover New Tetraquark Particle: X(5568)

Feb 26, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

Physicists on the DZero international collaboration at Fermilab, the U.S. Department of Energy’s laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics,...

11,000-year-old pendant. Image credit: Milner, N. et al. / Internet Archaeology, doi: 10.11141/ia.40.8.

Archaeologists Find 11,000-Year-Old Engraved Pendant in Britain

Feb 26, 2016 by News Staff

An 11,000-year-old engraved shale pendant has been found during excavations at the Early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, UK. 11,000-year-old engraved shale...

Tube sponges Callyspongia sp. attracting cardinal fishes, golden sweepers and wrasses. Image credit: Nick Hobgood / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study: Simple Sea Sponges Were Earth’s First Animals

Feb 25, 2016 by News Staff

Sea sponges appeared on our planet about 640 million years ago, much earlier than any other animal, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings...

This slab cut from the cube generated by the Illustris simulation shows the distribution of baryonic (normal) matter, with a width and height of 350 million light-years and a thickness of 300,000 light-years. Image credit: Markus Haider / Illustris Collaboration.

Supermassive Black Holes Transport Matter into Cosmic Voids, Astronomers Say

Feb 25, 2016 by News Staff

Cosmic voids — vast underdense regions, forming an essential feature of the cosmic web and occupying most of the volume of the Universe — could...

An artist’s impression of FRB 110523 reaching Earth; the colors represent the burst arriving at different radio wavelengths, with long wavelengths (red) arriving seconds after short wavelengths (blue). Image credit: Jingchuan Yu / Beijing Planetarium.

Astronomers Detect Host Galaxy of Fast Radio Burst for the First Time

Feb 25, 2016 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of astronomers reported today that they had tracked down the location of a so-called fast radio burst (FRB), a mysterious and rarely...

A fine wool textile dyed red and blue, found at Timna. The textile used the various colors of natural animal hair to create black and orange-brown colors for decorative bands. Image credit: Clara Amit / Israel Antiquities Authority.

3,000-Year-Old Textiles Found in Archaeological Dig in Timna Valley

Feb 24, 2016 by News Staff

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority have uncovered an extensive fabric collection in the ancient copper mines...

The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) by Frederick William Frohawk, 1905.

Dodo Bird Was Not So Stupid After All

Feb 24, 2016 by Sergio Prostak

According to a new study in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, an extinct bird known as the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was in fact relatively...

This part of the image of the Milky Way has been released to mark the completion of the APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the Galaxy. Image credit: ESO / APEX / ATLASGAL Consortium / NASA / GLIMPSE Consortium / ESA / Planck.

APEX Captures Spectacular Image of Milky Way’s Galactic Plane

Feb 24, 2016 by News Staff

Using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), a 12-m radio telescope at 5,100 m altitude in the Chilean Atacama desert, astronomers have mapped the full...

Pseudo-color image of Messier 90 (NGC 4569); north is up, east left. Image credit: A. Boselli et al.

Astronomers Spot Galaxy with 300,000 Light-Year-Long Tail of Ionized Gas

Feb 23, 2016 by News Staff

Messier 90, the brightest galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, has a 300,000 light-year-long tail of diffuse ionized gas flowing from it, says an international...