Science

  Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe has just made history — again. The spacecraft gathered samples from the surface of the asteroid Ryugu earlier this year, and it bombed the asteroid a few months later. Now, the probe has taken another trip to the surface to scoop up pristine material that used …

According to new research, gorillas have complex social structures, from lifetime bonds forged between distant relations, to social tiers with striking parallels to traditional human societies. The results, published in the July 3 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, indicate that the hierarchical social organization observed in …

In a study published online this week in the journal eLife, researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth examined how environmental stressors put on fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) can influence the phenotypes of their offspring. A fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). Image credit: Sanjay Acharya / CC BY-SA 4.0. …

Paleontologists in China have uncovered a nearly complete, fully articulated skeleton of Microraptor zhaoianus, a pigeon-sized, four-winged dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago, and found an additional surprise preserved in its stomach: a previously unknown species of prehistoric lizard. Microraptor swallowing Indrasaurus wangi. Image credit: Doyle Trankina. The …

Snowball is a male sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita eleonora). In 2007, he garnered YouTube fame for his uncanny ability to dance — including head bobs and foot steps — to the beat of the Backstreet Boys. According to a new study published in the journal Current Biology, Snowball has a …

Mackerel (lamniform) sharks include some of the most iconic shark species, like the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) and the extinct Carcharocles megalodon, the biggest predatory shark that has ever roamed the world’s oceans. A team of paleontologists has examined the tooth mineralization processes in mackerel sharks and discovered a …

Nocturnal exposure to light containing short wavelength emissions (450-500 nm) — the kind of light produced by the screens of many devices — raises blood sugar levels and increases sugar intake, according to a study performed on Sudanian grass rats (Arvicanthis ansorgei). Nighttime exposure to blue light causes glucose intolerance …

A large international team of researchers has sequenced the genome of the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), a major crop for worldwide food and nutritional security, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. African farmers domesticated the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) from its wild form, in a process of unconscious selection over many centuries. Domesticated cowpea …

According to new research, spores of the fungus Aspergillus niger are able to withstand higher doses of radiation than previously thought, which can have implications in future planetary protection policies. This scanning electron microscopic (SEM) image depicts a close up of Aspergillus sp. fungal fruiting body. This reproductive structure is …

A team of physicists at the Yokohama National University, Japan, has successfully demonstrated quantum teleportation — the remote exchange of quantum states — in a diamond. The lattice structure of diamond contains a nitrogen-vacancy center with surrounding carbon nuclear spins; the carbon isotope 13C (green) is first entangled with an …