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Excavations in Tam Pà Ling, northeastern Laos. Image credit: Hernandez et al., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108982.

New Excavations Provide Insights into Early Human Activity in Jungles of Laos

Oct 11, 2024 by News Staff

Archaeologists excavating Tam Pà Ling (Cave of Monkeys) in northeastern Laos have recovered fossil evidence for some of the earliest Homo sapiens presence...

Life reconstruction of Ardetosaurus viator. Image credit: Ole Zant.

New Sauropod Dinosaur Discovered in Wyoming: Ardetosaurus viator

Oct 10, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of sauropod dinosaur from a semi-articulated specimen found in the 1990s in northern Wyoming, the...

In this image, two three-dimensional shapes (top) of Uranus are compared to the actual views of the planet from Hubble (bottom left) and New Horizon (bottom right). Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Samantha Hasler, MIT / Amy Simon, NASA-GSFC / New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team / Joseph DePasquale, STScI / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Hubble Space Telescope and New Horizons Focus on Uranus

Oct 10, 2024 by News Staff

In a new study, astronomers compared high-resolution images of Uranus from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to the more-distant view from NASA’s New...

The average American spends 93% of their time in built environments, almost 70% of that is in their place of residence. Human health and well-being are intrinsically tied to the quality of our personal environments and the microbiomes that populate them. Conversely, the built environment microbiome is seeded, formed, and re-shaped by occupant behavior, cleaning, personal hygiene and food choices, as well as geographic location and variability in infrastructure. Huttelmaier et al. focused on the presence of viruses in household biofilms, specifically in showerheads and on toothbrushes.

Study: Your Showerheads and Toothbrushes are Teeming with Diverse Collection of Viruses

Oct 10, 2024 by News Staff

Viruses collected in a Northwestern University-led study are bacteriophages — a type of virus that infects and replicates inside of bacteria. The...

Reconstruction of an avisaurid (e.g., Avisaurus darwini). Image credit: Clark et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310686.

Avisaurid Birds from Cretaceous Period May Have Hunted Like Modern Hawks and Owls

Oct 9, 2024 by News Staff

Paleontologists have described three new enantiornithine birds from the Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation, two of which represent new avisaurid species....

Orefice et al. studied the role of caffeine intake on endothelial function in lupus patients by assessing its effect on circulating endothelial progenitor cells. Image credit: Sci.News.

Consuming More Caffeine Improves Vascular Health, New Study Suggests

Oct 9, 2024 by News Staff

In a study led by the Sapienza University of Rome, caffeine intake was positively correlated with the percentage of circulating endothelial progenitor...

Coastal and underwater cave sites in southern Sicily contain important new clues about the path and fate of early human migrants to the island. Image credit: Ilaria Patania.

Coastal and Underwater Sites Contain Clues about Early Migrants to Sicily, Archaeologists Say

Oct 9, 2024 by News Staff

The island of Sicily is considered to be among the first occupied by humans in the European Upper Paleolithic. Studies to understand early occupation of...

Fertile branches and seeds of Alasemenia tria. Image credit: Wang et al., doi: 10.7554/eLife.92962.3.

365-Million-Year-Old Winged Seed Fossil Found in China

Oct 9, 2024 by News Staff

Named Alasemenia tria, the new specimen from the Wutong Formation in the Chinese province of Anhui dates back to the Famennian stage of the the Late Devonian...

This image taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the comet 2P/Encke riding along its pebbly trail of debris. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Minnesota.

Astronomers Find Fewer Potentially Hazardous Asteroids in Earth’s Neighborhood than Previously Estimated

Oct 9, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) have investigated the Taurid resonant swarm, a large interplanetary system that contains comet 2P/Encke,...

Morphological features of Sheba. Image credit: Guy Eisner / Elaine Solowey / Sallon et al., doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06721-5.

Long-Lost Myrrh Species Resurrected from 1,000-Year-Old Seed

Oct 8, 2024 by Natali Anderson

A team of biologists in Israel has grown an extinct — or at least extirpated — tree species of the myrrh genus Commiphora from an ancient seed...

An artist’s concept of an early Mars with liquid water (blue areas) on its surface. Image credit: NASA / MAVEN / Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Carbonate Minerals from Gale Crater Shed Light on Ancient Martian Climate

Oct 8, 2024 by News Staff

Carbonate minerals are of particular interest in paleoenvironmental research as they are an integral part of the carbon and water cycles, both of which...

The spotted handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus). Image credit: CSIRO.

Spotted Handfish Genome Sequenced

Oct 8, 2024 by News Staff

A team of researchers at CSIRO has decoded the genome of the spotted handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus), a critically endangered species of marine fish...

This image shows the galaxy REBELS-25 as seen by ALMA, overlaid on an infrared image of other stars and galaxies. The infrared image was taken by ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA). Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Rowland et al. / Dunlop et al. / CASU / CALET.

Astronomers Discover Most Distant Rotating Disk Galaxy: REBELS-25

Oct 8, 2024 by News Staff

REBELS-25 existed as early as 700 million years after Big Bang, according to a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This...

Cryo-EM structure of α-latrotoxin in two distinct tetrameric states. Image credit: Klink et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-52635-5.

Researchers Decode Structure of Vertebrate-Specific Toxin in Black Widow Spider Venom

Oct 8, 2024 by News Staff

The venom of black widow spiders contains a cocktail of seven specific latrotoxins, but only one — α-latrotoxin — targets vertebrates, including...

Epoidesuchus tavaresae is a new species of Peirosauridae from the Cretaceous Adamantina Formation, Brazil. Image credit: Ruiz et al., doi: 10.1002/ar.25559.

New Species of Gondwanan Notosuchian Identified in Brazil

Oct 7, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of long-snouted notosuchian from the fragmentary remains found in Brazil’s Adamantina Formation. Epoidesuchus...

While maintaining a population of Mnemiopsis leidyi in a seawater tank, Jokura et al. noticed an atypically large individual with two aboral ends and two apical organs. Image credit: Jokura et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.084.

Two Injured Comb Jellies Can Fuse into Single Entity, Scientists Discover

Oct 7, 2024 by News Staff

Two injured individuals of Mnemiopsis leidyi, a species of planktonic animals known as comb jellies or ctenophores, are capable of rapidly fusing into...

Pterosaurs were adapted to a remarkably broad range of non-aerial locomotor ecologies; small, early, long-tailed pterosaurs (non-pterodactyliforms) exhibit extreme modifications in their hand and foot proportions indicative of climbing lifestyles; by contrast, the hands and feet of later, short-tailed pterosaurs (pterodactyliforms) typically exhibit morphologies consistent with more ground-based locomotor ecologies: (A) paleoart reconstruction of the non-pterodactyliform Scaphognathus crassirostris (Upper Jurassic) in scansorial mode, with autopodia characterized by short proximal elements and elongated distal elements; (B) paleoart reconstruction of the pterodactyliform Balaenognathus maeuseri (Upper Jurassic) in terrestrial mode, with autopodia characterized by elongated proximal elements and shortened distal elements; (C) reconstructions of Scaphognathus (left) and Balaenognathus (right) in dorsal view indicating the principal flight surfaces; (D) simplified pterosaur phylogeny indicating the principal taxonomic groups used in the study. Image credit: Smyth et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.09.014.

Pterosaurs were Adapted to Broad Range of Terrestrial Lifestyles, Study Shows

Oct 7, 2024 by News Staff

New research by paleontologists from the University of Leicester, the University of Birmingham and Liverpool John Moores University demonstrates an unexpectedly...

The tokay gecko (Gekko gecko). Image credit: Duncan Leitch.

Geckos Have ‘Sixth Sense,’ Biologists Say

Oct 7, 2024 by News Staff

Geckos use the saccule — a part of their inner ear traditionally associated with maintaining balance and body positioning — to detect low-frequency...

This Hubble image shows NGC 5248, a grand design spiral galaxy located some 42 million light-years away in the constellation of Boötes. The color image was made from separate exposures taken in the visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared regions of the spectrum with Hubble’s WFC3 instrument. Six filters were used to sample various wavelengths. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / F. Belfiore / J. Lee / PHANGS-HST Team.

Hubble Space Telescope Sees Starburst Regions in NGC 5248

Oct 7, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has taken a striking new image of the grand design spiral galaxy NGC 5248. This Hubble image shows NGC 5248, a grand...