Page 582 | Sci.News: Breaking Science News

Polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Image credit: Steve Amstrup / USFWS.

Increasing Sea Ice Loss is Dangerous Threat to Polar Bears, Scientists Say

Jul 17, 2015 by News Staff

According to a team of scientists led by Dr John Whiteman from the University of Wyoming, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are unlikely to physiologically...

This image of Pluto’s largest moon Charon was taken on July 13 from a distance of 289,000 miles (466,000 km). The inset is a black-and-white close-up taken on July 14. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

NASA Releases New Close-Up of Pluto’s Moon Charon

Jul 17, 2015 by News Staff

A close-up image of an area on Pluto’s largest moon Charon reveals a depression with a peak in the middle. This new image of an area on Charon has a...

Male and female superb fairy-wrens in Ensay, Victoria, Australia. This is a composite image, the right bird was inserted into the image. Image credit: Benjamin T. / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Scientists Train Fairy-Wrens to Understand Foreign ‘Languages’

Jul 16, 2015 by News Staff

A team of ornithologists, led by Prof Robert Magrath of the Australian National University, has succeeded in teaching wild superb fairy-wrens (Malurus...

A 3D structure of hexagonal boron nitride sheets and boron nitride nanotubes could be a tunable material to control heat in gadgets. Image credit: Rouzbeh Shahsavari / Navid Sakhavand / Rice University.

3D Boron Nitride Could Help Keep Gadgets Cool

Jul 16, 2015 by News Staff

A team of researchers at Rice University has completed the first analysis of how 3D boron nitride might be used as a tunable material to control heat flow...

An artist’s impression of Zhenyuanlong suni. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

Zhenyuanlong suni: New Feather-Winged Dinosaur Species Discovered

Jul 16, 2015 by News Staff

A new species of dinosaur with bird-like wings has come to light in China’s rocks dating to some 125 million years ago. An artist’s impression of Zhenyuanlong...

New Horizons Captures Pluto’s Moons Charon and Hydra

Jul 16, 2015 by News Staff

New details of Pluto’s moons Charon and Hydra are revealed in the latest images from the spacecraft’s Long Range Reconnaissance Imager, taken on July...

This close-up image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 47,800 miles (77,000 km) from the dwarf planet’s surface. The image easily resolves structures smaller than a mile across. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New, Close-Up Image of Pluto Reveals Youthful Mountains

Jul 16, 2015 by News Staff

The new image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft shows a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3.5 km) above the dwarf planet’s...

Streptococcus pyogenes under the electron microscope (false color). Image credit: Vincent Fischetti, Rockefeller University / CDC.

Scientists Discover New Dangerous Subtype of Streptococcus pyogenes

Jul 15, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Imperial College London has discovered a new subtype of emm89 Streptococcus pyogenes that has contributed to a rise in disease...

The Korean melon (Cucumis melo L. var. makuwa). Image credit: D. Hutchman / CC BY 2.0.

New Study Reveals Genomic Architecture of Melon Genome

Jul 15, 2015 by News Staff

A team of genetic researchers from Italy and Spain has completed the first comprehensive analysis of the genomes of seven melon varieties. The Korean melon...

Igneous clast named Harrison embedded in a conglomerate rock in Gale crater shows elongated light-toned feldspar crystals. The mosaic merges an image from Curiosity’s Mastcam with higher-resolution images from ChemCam’s Remote Micro-Imager. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / LANL / IRAP / U. Nantes / IAS / MSSS.

Curiosity Finds Evidence for Continental Crust on Early Mars

Jul 15, 2015 by News Staff

According to a team headed by Dr Violaine Sautter from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, Martian crustal components bear a strong...

An artist’s rendering shows an exoplanet called HIP 11915b around the Sun-like star HIP 11915. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

HIP 11915b: Jupiter Twin Found Orbiting Sun-Like Star

Jul 15, 2015 by News Staff

Using the HARPS planet-hunting instrument on the 3.6-m telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, Chile, astronomers have discovered a Jupiter-mass exoplanet...

This July 13, 2015, image of Pluto is presented in false colors to make differences in surface material and features easy to see. It was obtained by New Horizons’ Ralph instrument, using three filters to obtain color information, which is exaggerated in the image. The image reveals that the bright heart-shaped region of Pluto includes areas that differ in color characteristics. The western lobe, shaped like an ice-cream cone, appears peach color in this image. A mottled area on the right (east) appears bluish. Even within Pluto’s northern polar cap, in the upper part of the image, various shades of yellow-orange indicate subtle compositional differences. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

New Horizons Sends Signal Home

Jul 15, 2015 by News Staff

New Horizons called home around 9 p.m. EDT (6 p.m. PDT, 1 a.m. GMT Wednesday) Tuesday to tell the world it had successfully completed the historic flyby...

Collisions at 13 TeV send particle tracks through the LHCb detector. Image credit: LHCb.

CERN Physicists Confirm Existence of Pentaquark Particles

Jul 14, 2015 by News Staff

Physicists from CERN’s LHCb experiment announced today the observation of a pentaquark, a hadron consisting of five quarks. Illustration of the possible...

Pluto nearly fills the frame in this image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015, when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 km) from the dwarf planet’s surface. This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 14. The color image has been combined with lower-resolution color information from the Ralph instrument that was acquired earlier on July 13. This view is dominated by the large, bright feature informally named the ‘heart,’ which measures around 1,000 miles (1,600 km) across. The heart’s diameter is about the same distance as from Denver to Chicago, in America’s heartland. The heart borders darker equatorial terrains, and the mottled terrain to its east (right) are complex. However, even at this resolution, much of the heart’s interior appears remarkably featureless-possibly a sign of ongoing geologic processes. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Arrives at Pluto

Jul 14, 2015 by News Staff

After a journey of nine and a half years through the Solar System, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto today, about 7,750 miles (12,470 km)...

A 3D relief map of the volcanic cluster on the sea floor. The sea floor is represented by a dark blue color and there are four calderas rising out of the sea floor in shades of green, yellow, orange and red. Image credit: University of New South Wales.

Ancient Underwater Volcanoes Discovered off Australia

Jul 14, 2015 by News Staff

A team of researchers aboard an ocean-going research vessel called RV Investigator has discovered a cluster of 50-million-year-old volcanoes off the coast...

Until now, it was believed that chromosomes only played a passive role in animal cell division. Image credit: NIH.

Biologists Discover New Mechanism of Cell Division

Jul 14, 2015 by News Staff

Chromosomes play an active role in animal cell division, reports a study published in the journal Nature. Until now, it was believed that chromosomes only...

This image of Pluto from New Horizons was received on July 8, 2015, and has been combined with color information from the spacecraft’s Ralph instrument. The image was taken on July 7, when New Horizons was 5 million miles (8 million km) from the dwarf planet. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Watch Live on NASA TV: New Horizons Pluto Flyby

Jul 14, 2015 by News Staff

NASA’s New Horizons will complete a close flyby of Pluto today at 7:49 a.m. EST (4:49 a.m. PST, 11:49 a.m. GMT, 1:49 p.m. CET, 5:19 p.m. IST, 9:49 p.m....

Plutonium-238 sphere under its own light. With a half-life of 89 years, plutonium-238 is being used in space applications requiring a power source with a long service life. Plutonium-238 has a relatively high heat production rate which makes it useful as a power source. Image credit: DoE.

Plutonium’s Magnetism Confirmed in New Study

Jul 13, 2015 by News Staff

Physicists at the DoE’s Los Alamos and Oak Ridge national laboratories have made the first direct measurements of a unique characteristic of plutonium’s...

This new Hubble image shows a massive open star cluster known as the Quintuplet Cluster in infrared light. Image credit: ESA / Hubble / NASA.

Hubble Sees Quintuplet Cluster in Infrared Light

Jul 13, 2015 by News Staff

The Wide Field Camera 3 on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the Quintuplet Cluster, a very dense cluster of young stars...