Science

  NASA is currently on an incredibly ambitious timetable to send the new crewed missions to the moon by 2024. The Artemis Program will use the agency’s Orion spacecraft, which borrows liberally from the old Apollo-era command module. Now, NASA is formalizing its plans with a long-term contract for Lockheed …

Rauisuchians — predatory crocodile-like creatures that lived during the Triassic period, some 210 million years ago — preyed on early herbivorous dinosaurs and mammal relatives, according to a new study. An artist’s reconstruction of two rauisuchians fighting over a desiccated corpse of a mammal-relative in the Triassic of southern Africa. …

Domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) form attachments with their owners that are similar to the bonds formed by children and dogs with their caretakers, a new study from Oregon State University shows. Pet cats show a similar capacity for the formation of secure and insecure attachments towards human caregivers previously …

Dr. Jonathan Betts from the University of Surrey and colleagues have found that the green-tea polyphenol epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) can restore the activity of aztreonam, an antibiotic commonly used to treat infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a Gram-negative pathogen that is intrinsically multidrug-resistant and frequently associated with healthcare-associated outbreaks. Epigallocatechin …

A team of Australian scientists has successfully completed an integrated genomic characterization of a reef-building coral species called Porites lutea and its microbial partners (bacteria, Archaea, algae etc.). Schematic overview of interactions between Porites lutea and its microbial symbionts. Image credit: Robbins et al, doi: 10.1038/s41564-019-0532-4. “Symbiotic relationships are incredibly …

The Venusian climate remained stable and temperate for about three billion years, until a mysterious global event resurfaced around 80% of the planet, according to new research by NASA planetary scientists. Observations suggest Venus may have had water oceans in its distant past; a land-ocean pattern like that above was …

The High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured this detailed image of the Red Planet on June 17, 2019. This image from ESA’s Mars Express shows a beautiful slice of the Red Planet from the northern polar cap downwards, and highlights cratered, pockmarked swathes of the Terra …

A team of scientists at the University of Pennsylvania has developed a new vaccine candidate to protect against herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), the most common sexually-transmitted disease. Using a fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) conjugated immunoglobulin staining technique, and under direct immunofluorescence (DIF), this tissue sample extracted from a vesicle …

DNA is constructed of two strands, consisting of sugar molecules and phosphate groups. Between these two strands are nitrogen bases, the compounds which make up genes, with hydrogen bonds between them. Until now, it was thought that those hydrogen bonds were what held the two strands together. But a new …

  The universe is filled with almost incomprehensibly bizarre phenomena, but astronomers may be a step closer to understanding the life cycle of stars. Astronomers observing a distant star system have identified what may be the most massive neutron star ever discovered. This could help shed light on the murky …