Science

  When NASA’s new drone Dragonfly arrives on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, it won’t roll across the surface like Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity have on Mars. Instead, Dragonfly is a dual-rotor quadcopter that will fly from point to point, using a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) system. It leverages existing …

The famous ring system of Saturn may be much older than some planetary scientists think, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. Southwest Research Institute researcher Luke Dones and his colleagues from CNRS and …

Paleontologists have found the remains of a pelagornithid bird that lived 62 million years ago (early Paleocene epoch) in New Zealand. Protodontopteryx ruthae. Image credit: Derek Onley / Canterbury Museum. Dubbed Protodontopteryx ruthae, the ancient seabird belongs to Pelagornithidae, an ancient family of bony-toothed birds. These seafaring birds were previously …

Edom, an ancient kingdom of the southern Levant mentioned in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) as well as in Assyrian and Egyptian sources, experienced a ‘leap’ in technological advancement in the 10th century BCE, according to new research led by Tel Aviv University scientists. Main features of the organization of …

There’s always a lot of extraterrestrial dust floating down to Earth, but this dust is normally only a tiny fraction of the other dust in our atmosphere such as volcanic ash, dust from deserts and sea salt. But when a 93-mile (150 km) wide asteroid broke apart in the main …

A team of researchers from Israel and Spain has produced reconstructions of Denisovans, an extinct sister group of Neanderthals, based on patterns of methylation — chemical changes — in their ancient DNA. A portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps. …

A team of researchers from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Washington proposes a new model of plasma motion that would explain the 11-year sunspot cycle, magnetic reversals, and other previously unexplained solar phenomena. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured this image of the Sun with …

The similar clustering of DNA in the chromosomes of humans and Archaea is significant because certain genes activate or deactivate based upon how they’re folded, according to a paper published in the journal Cell. Sulfolobus sp.: each cell is outlined in red; the DNA is stained blue. Image credit: Stephen …

A team of Israeli archaeologists has uncovered an impressively detailed mosaic in an ancient city called Hippos-Sussita. Dating back approximately 1,400 years to the Byzantine period, the mosaic once sat on a church floor and may depict one of Jesus’ most famous miracles — ‘Feeding of the 5,000.’ The fragment …

Scientists from the Penguin Genome Consortium have produced 19 high-coverage penguin genome sequences that, together with two previously published genomes, encompass all surviving penguin species. Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri). Image credit: Michael Van Woert / NOAA / NESDIS / ORA. Penguins (Sphenisciformes) are a remarkable order of flightless wing-propelled diving …