Through new partnerships with private companies, NASA aims to ramp up its efforts to return to the moon. This image of the moon was taken above Newfoundland from the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA) Moon-bound NASA’s going back to the moon. President Trump signed a directive last year which ordered the agency to make plans for […]
Astrophysicist Marco Ajello at the Clemson Outdoor Lab. (Credit: Pete Martin/Clemson University) Astrophysicists estimate that our universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago, with the first stars forming when the universe was just a few hundred million years old. By peering back at the earliest days of stellar creation, scientists in South Carolina have measured […]
A gray whale shows off their baleen, the comb-like structure attached to their gums that allows them to filter feed. Previous theories explaining how baleen evolved might be wrong after researchers gave an ancient whales’ mouth a closer look. (Credit: Jo Crebbin/Shutterstock) One of the great mysteries in marine research is how whales developed baleen, […]
ALMA observed the Cat’s Paw Nebula, picking up nearly 700 emission lines from molecules within the region (blue). This result shows more than 10 times the emission lines picked up by the Herschel Space Observatory (gray, inverted to better compare the two). (Credit: S. Lipinski/NASA & ESA, NAOJ, NRAO/AUI/NSF, B. McGuire et al.) The Atacama […]
(Credit: Dmitry Pichugin/Shutterstock) As humans spread across the planet, high-altitude places like the Tibetan Plateau were some of the last regions to be inhabited. Now archaeologists have discovered a cache of ancient stone blades in northern Tibet from at least 30,000 years ago. The find is the earliest evidence for people living at high altitude […]
Researchers have discovered that mother jumping spiders (Toxeus magnus, an ant mimic) nurse their young with a milk-like substance. (Credit: Chen/Science) Got milk? Of course you do; few things are as uniquely mammalian as our milky infancies. Sure, we’ve all got backbones (but so do lizards), warm blood (but so do birds), and hair (but […]
Ain Boucherit, a site in Algeria, has yielded numerous stone tools, such as this Oldowan core. The tools are up to 2.4 million years old and were found with hundreds of animal bones, several of which show signs of butchery. (Credit: M. Sahnouni) Stone tools and animal bones with cut marks, excavated at a site […]
(Credit: Thithawat.S/Shutterstock) If you think dating culture only applies to humans, think again. A team of researchers recently discovered that female fruit flies take their mating preferences from their peers. When presented with a few differently-colored suitors, the flies were more likely to choose the color they’d seen other flies select before them. This kind of conformity […]
Stone tools found at Saffaqah, in central Saudi Arabia, include (a) a large flake with a smaller flake created during tool manufacture still attached, (b) other large flakes, (c) a handaxe and (d) a large core. (Credit: Scerri et al 2018, doi:10.1038/s41598-018-35242-5) Hundreds of stone tools and related materials, found in central Saudi Arabia, reveal new information […]
Flying Saucers and Little Green Men Do you believe that extraterrestrials have visited the Earth? If so, you are not alone as more than 48 percent of your fellow Americans believe the same.1 And if you have more than just a passing interest in the subject, then you will already be familiar with […]
He talks to Matthew Porteus of Stanford during a panel talk following his presentation. (Credit: Ernie Mastroianni/Discover) HONG KONG — Chinese researcher He Jiankui, who claims to have edited the genomes of twin infant girls to protect them from HIV while they were embryos, presented his work today at a conference at the University of […]
Enterobacter cloacae bacteria cultured in a petri dish. In a new study, scientists have investigated the antibiotic-resistance of bacteria on the space station. (Credit: CDC) Space Bacteria Wherever humans go, our bacterial companions will follow. That’s as true in space as it is on Earth, and while we’ve known that microbial astronauts are present on […]
An Adventure to Venus Though widespread interest in Venus has somewhat waned over recent decades, India’s upcoming mission aims to turn that tide. As part of a still unnamed mission, ISRO will launch an approximately 5,500-pound (2,500-kilogram) spacecraft aboard the heaviest rocket they currently operate: the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III. The sheer size […]
On November 17, 2018 a triangular UFO has been filmed over Homestead, Florida close to the Naval Base. The cloaked object stays motionless in the sky, only the three bright lights in the form of a triangle are visible. It looks like it is a TR3B. Now, according to Smith, a top scientist, there are […]
(Credit: kletr/Shutterstock) In chimpanzee societies, a whistle followed by a high-pitched hoot seems to mean, “I’m leaving.” Energetic grunts probably say “good food.” And a hip thrust could signal that chimp is ready to get frisky. These rough translations result from decades of research on chimp communication. In addition to revealing what apes are saying […]