Science

Humanity first left the solar system in 2012 when the Voyager 1 probe passed into interstellar space decades after leaving the planets behind. Now, there’s a second spacecraft beyond the limits of our solar system: Voyager 2. Luckily, Voyager 2’s instruments are in somewhat better shape than Voyager 1’s, so …

A cut-marked eagle phalange recovered from Foradada Cave in Spain suggests that Iberian Neanderthals used the birds’ talons as bead-like objects. The 39,000-year-old eagle phalange with cut marks from Foradada Cave, Spain: (A) dorsal, medial, plantar, and lateral views of the phalange (from left to right, respectively); (B) detail of …

A previously unrecognized mode of fossilization of ancient microbes may explain how some of Earth’s oldest microfossils formed, according to new research. Rasmussen Muhling show that the infiltration of liquid hydrocarbons was responsible for the formation of these filamentous microfossils from the Red Dog Zn-Pb-Ag massive sulfide deposit in the …

The end-Triassic mass extinction occurred 201.51 million years ago and resulted in the demise of some 76% of all marine and land species. Up until now, most scientists believed that the catastrophe was caused by the release of volcanic carbon dioxide with global warming as a consequence. According to new …

Complex chemical signals are triggered when water lands on a plant to help it prepare for the dangers of rain, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Van Moerkercke et al made the surprising discovery that a plant’s reaction to rain is …

Avocatin B, a fat molecule found only in avocados (Persea americana), can inhibit cellular processes that normally lead to diabetes, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research. Avocatin B is a lipid derived from avocado. Image credit: Robert Owen-Wahl. “Eating avocados alone would likely …

  Hygiea is the 10th asteroid discovered in the Asteroid Belt and the fourth-largest asteroid by mass. While one of the largest asteroids, its dark surface made it difficult to distinguish from Earth using telescopes of the day. Ceres was discovered in 1801, but Hygiea (formal designation: 10 Hygiea) wasn’t located …

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, University of Lyon’s Dr. Jean Vannier and colleagues described several fossilized clusters of Ampyx priscus, a species of trilobite that lived 480 million years ago (Ordovician period); the paleontologists interpreted the fossils as a collective behavior related to seasonal reproduction or …

The earliest ancestors of anatomically modern Homo sapiens emerged in a region south of the Zambezi River in Botswana, Africa, according to a new analysis of modern human’s mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA or mitogenome) from the L0 lineage, the oldest known mtDNA lineage on Earth. Ancient humans. Image credit: sjs.org / …

  It’s been nearly eight years since Curiosity launched from Cape Canaveral, and the aging rover should soon have company on the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 rover, currently being assembled at JPL, has met a major launch milestone and is now standing on its own six wheels. NASA celebrated …