Science

Complex animals evolved from single-celled ancestors, before diversifying into 30-40 distinct anatomical designs. When and how this major evolutionary transition occurred is the focus of intense debate. Now, an international team of researchers from the United Kingdom, China and Switzerland has found evidence that a key step in this transition …

In new research, Oregon State University scientists worked with biomedical suppliers to purchase and analyze 18 batches of human blood serum pooled from multiple donors (biomedical suppliers get their blood from blood banks, which pass along inventory that’s nearing its expiration date); the researchers found traces of caffeine in all …

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observed a high number of ‘dust towers’ — concentrated clouds of dust that warm in sunlight and rise high into the air — during the global Martian dust storm in 2018. The yellow-white cloud in the bottom-center of this image, taken on November 30, 2010 by …

In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, we show that, in the micro-world of atoms and particles that is governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, two different observers are entitled to their own facts. In other words, according to our best theory of the building blocks …

Epithelial cells that line our intestines serve as a robust barrier to invasion by viruses, bacteria and exposure to ingested agents. A new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, shows that microgravity, such as that encountered in spaceflight, disrupts the functioning of this epithelial barrier even after removal from …

  NASA’s long-running Commercial Crew Program is a major part of the agency’s plans to expand spaceflight, but the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is almost as important. As we look toward new moon landings, the CLPS will get the supplies and instruments we need to the lunar surface. Now, …

An international team of paleontologists has announced the discovery of an ancient interaction preserved in a 16-million-year-old (Miocene period) piece of amber from the Dominican Republic: a winged termite and an ant along with 25 springtails (one of the oldest terrestrial arthropod lineages living today) attached or in close proximity …

The two Martian hemispheres are drastically different; the smooth northern lowlands sit up to 3 km below the rugged southern highlands, and the surface in the northern regions appears to be far younger than the ancient swaths of the south. Where these regions meet, they sometimes form a transition area …

The drug ketamine can decrease alcohol consumption in male rats that previously had consumed high amounts of alcohol when given unrestricted access several times a week, according to a new study published in the journal eNeuro. Ketamine reduces alcohol intake in high-alcohol male rats but increases it in low-alcohol female …

A team of Japanese archaeologists has identified 143 new geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert, southern Peru. A geoglyph of a human. Image credit: Yamagata University. The geoglyphs of Nazca are a series of drawings located in the desert plains of the Rio Grande de Nazca river basin about 250 miles …