Science

‘Special occasion drinking’ during pregnancy could cause insulin resistance, which increases the likelihood of diabetes, in male offspring, suggests a new study conducted in rats. Nguyen et al examined the effect of an acute but moderate prenatal alcohol exposure on glucose metabolism, lipid levels and dietary preference in adolescent and/or …

  NASA is talking a lot about long-term missions like new trips to the moon and the possibility of human voyages to Mars, but its latest mission is a bit closer to home. The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) spacecraft is finally in orbit after years of delays. This probe orbits …

A research team led by University of Hawai’i at Manoa marine biologists has captured whale’s-point-of-view and aerial drone video of humpback whale bubble-net feeding in the waters off of Southeast Alaska.   About 3,000 humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) visit Alaska during the summer feeding period, and up to 10,000 visit …

Humans have a threshold limit for instantly processing one to four elements accurately; and it seems that our species is not alone, says a team of scientists from France and Australia. A honeybee (Apis mellifera). Image credit: Joanna Jankowski. “Guppies, angelfish and even honeybees are capable of distinguishing between quantities …

Lunar orbiters such as India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently detected water icy on the floor of some of the south polar craters, but no one is sure exactly when or how that ice got there. A new study by researchers from Brown University and NASA’s …

  The small, standardized satellites known as “Cubesats” have increased access to space — many launches include caches of Cubesats along with the main payload. Those tiny satellites are all hanging out around Earth, but that could change soon. Virgin Orbit, the rocket-based spinoff of Virgin Galactic, has signed a …

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new genus and species of carcharodontosaurian dinosaur, based on the fossilized remains found in Thailand. Skeletal reconstruction of Siamraptor suwati. Scale bar – 1 m. Image credit: Chokchaloemwong et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222489. Dubbed Siamraptor suwati by its discoverers, the newly-discovered dinosaur lived approximately …

In a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of physicists proposes a new strategy for searching for hypothetical dark matter particles called axions using tunable plasmas. Lawson et al propose a new instrument for searching dark matter axions using tunable plasmas. Image credit: Alexander Millar …

According to a new study published in the journal Science Advances, cartilage in our joints can repair itself through a process similar to that used by highly regenerative animals such as axolotl, zebrafish, and bichir. Hsueh et al studied cartilage from the hip, knee and ankle and discovered a pattern …

A new image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express shows the part of Nirgal Vallis, a dried-up river valley on Mars. This image, taken by ESA’s Mars Express on November 16, 2018, shows Nirgal Vallis on Mars. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / …