Science

A fossil site in Canada has yielded the best-preserved specimen of the dromaeosaurid dinosaur Saurornitholestes langstoni ever found. Saurornitholestes langstoni. Image credit: Jan Sovak. First scientifically described in 1978, Saurornitholestes langstoni is a carnivorous feathered dinosaur within the family Dromaeosauridae (also known as raptors). It lived approximately 76 million years …

Archaeologists have unearthed a collection of 31 metal objects, including a bronze tool with a birch handle, a knife, a chisel, bronze cylinders, and ingot fragments, at the site of a Bronze Age battlefield in the Tollense Valley in north-eastern Germany. Photograph of the collection of bronze objects from the …

Different groups of gigantic dinosaurs had different thermoregulatory strategies to help moderate brain temperatures in the face of high heat loads, according to new research from the Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. Gigantic dinosaurs like the sauropod Diplodocus, which weighed over 15 tons and was longer than an …

Arapaima gigas is a large Amazonian fish (weighing up to 150 kg) living primarily in seasonal lakes infested with ferocious piranhas. The freshwater giant has armor-like scales that can deform, but do not tear or crack, when a piranha attacks. According to a new study published in the journal Matter, …

An international team of researchers from Brazil, the United States and Sweden has found that polyphenols found in berries of the açaí palm (Euterpe oleracea) can reduce malaria parasites in the blood of infected mice and prolong their survival. Açaí palms (Euterpe oleracea) in Summit Park, Panama. Image credit: Dick …

According to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports, when it comes to being willing to explore more efficient options to solving a problem, capuchin monkeys and rhesus macaques exhibit more cognitive flexibility than our own species. A capuchin monkey. Image credit: Georgia State University. As humans, we live …

A duo of marine biologists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the Justus-Liebig-Universität in Germany has discovered and described two new porcelain crab species. Polyonyx socialis, female, Mun Island, Nhatrang Bay, south coast of Vietnam, South China Sea; right side of carapace deformed by parasitic isopods. Scale …

A team of planetary researchers from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and elsewhere has found that a volcanic flow on Venus’ Ovda Regio highlands plateau is made of basaltic lava and isn’t silica-rich. This discovery weakens the notion that Venus might once have been Earth-like with an ocean of …

A new species of prehistoric stingray with an exceptional anatomy, which greatly differs from living species, has been identified from fossils found in Italy. Lessiniabatis aenigmatica from the Eocene of Bolca Lagerstätte. Scale bars – 10 cm. Image credit: Marrama et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-50544-y. “Stingrays (order Myliobatiformes) are a very …

An international team of scientists sent high-frequency sound waves across a modified semiconductor device to direct the behavior of a single electron, with efficiency above 99%. 3D render of the semiconductor nanostructure. Image credit: Hermann Edlbauer. A quantum computer would be able to solve previously unsolvable computational problems by taking …