Using a new gene-analyzing technique, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have found that all extant species of cyanobacteria can be traced back to a common ancestor that evolved around 2.9 billion years ago. They’ve also found that the ancestors of cyanobacteria branched off from other bacteria around 3.4 billion years …

Paleontologists have found a million-year-old hippo tooth at the site of Westbury Cave in Somerset, England. This fossil constitutes the earliest bona fide record of Hippopotamus in the United Kingdom. The left first upper molar of Hippopotamus antiquus from the Early Pleistocene Siliceous Member in Westbury Cave, Somerset, England. Image …

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of coelophysoid theropod dinosaur from the Late Triassic deposits of Pant-y-ffynnon in southern Wales. Life reconstruction of Pendraig milnerae among the fissures of Pant-y-ffynnon and three individuals of the rhynchocephalian lepidosaur Clevosaurus cambrica during the Late Triassic epoch. Image credit: James Robbins. …

It has been more than a decade since Microsoft unveiled the Kinect, a motion-sensing gaming peripheral for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Microsoft tried and tried to make Kinect happen, even going so far as to bundle it with the Xbox One, but it ultimately failed to capture gamers’ …

(Photo: Michael Podger/Unsplash)Spider silk has long been said to have antibacterial properties. The ancient Greeks and Romans supposedly used the silk when treating flesh wounds, and some recent studies report antimicrobial activity (AMA) on spider silk, leading many cultures and social circles today to believe the sticky substance is a …

New research published in the journal Scientific Reports provides the first direct evidence of omnivory in an ancient sloth species. Reconstruction of the Darwin’s ground sloth (Mylodon darwinii) feeding on the carcass of the hoofed native herbivore Macrauchenia. These extinct mammals roamed the Pleistocene landscape of Patagonia and other parts …

Eograminis balticus, a new species of grass found in a piece of 40-50-million-year-old amber, represents the first definite grass to be described from Baltic amber as well as the first fossil member of Arundinoideae, a subfamily of the widespread Poaceae family that includes cereal grasses, bamboos and many species found …

The ESA/JAXA space probe BepiColombo made its first flyby of Mercury over the weekend and beamed back some excellent photos to mark the occasion. It’s a big milestone for the orbiter, which has been working its way toward Mercury since it launched nearly three years ago, on October 20, 2018. …

Earlier this week, we reported that ARM China had seized IP belonging to ARM, its parent company. The author of the story we linked apparently did not fully understand the context of the situation, however, and we inadvertently magnified an article with some misapprehensions in it. We have spoken to …

Apple has just released the updated iPad Mini, a device that packs most of what makes the larger iPads so popular into a diminutive frame. This tablet has an 8.3-inch 60Hz LCD display with narrow bezels and impressive brightness for a tablet. It also exhibits a phenomenon dubbed “jelly scrolling,” …