Science

  You can add two new entries to the growing list of potentially habitable exoplanets. Astronomers have spotted a pair of planets orbiting Teegarden’s Star, a red dwarf about 12 light years distant. The star is ancient, as are the planets orbiting it. So, if life was going to evolve …

  NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) works with some of the most advanced technology in the world, including Mars rovers and space telescopes. However, it was a relatively simple piece of consumer technology that allowed hackers to break into its network and steal data. According to a report from the …

Paleontologists have found two fossilized teeth of extinct cursorial hyenas (genus Chasmaporthetes) in the remote Old Crow River region in northern Yukon Territory, Canada. An artist’s rendering of ancient Arctic hyenas belonging to the genus Chasmaporthetes. Image credit: Julius T. Csotonyi. The newly-described fossil teeth of Chasmaporthetes hyenas are most …

In a new study published in the journal eLife, an international team of paleontologists looked for preserved collagen proteins and DNA in the fossilized bones of a horned dinosaur called Centrosaurus. They didn’t find the proteins or DNA, but they did find unusual communities of modern microbes living inside the …

About three decades after scientists coined the term ‘hygiene hypothesis’ to suggest that increased exposure to microorganisms could benefit health, an international team of biologists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Hungary has identified an anti-inflammatory lipid in the soil-dwelling bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae that may be responsible. Mycobacterium …

An international research team led by Northeastern University marine biologists has discovered a new genus and species of shipworm burrowing into the bedrock of the Abatan River on the Philippine Island of Bohol. Rock-boring and rock-ingesting Lithoredo abatanica shipworms live in carbonate limestone bedrock in the Abatan River on the …

Narwhals (Monodon monoceros) and beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) are medium-sized toothed whales and the sole representatives of the Monodontidae family. They are the only toothed whales endemic to the Arctic region. While they are each other’s closest relatives and roughly equal in size, these two species differ in their morphology …

An international team of theoretical physicists has found that when gravity is combined with quantum mechanics, no global symmetries are possible. Quantum gravity is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics. Image credit: Gerd Altmann. “There are four kinds of …

A new study, published in the June 11 issue of the journal Cell Reports, found that poly(ADP ribose), or PAR, a molecule once thought only to exist inside cells for the purpose of repairing DNA, is responsible for hardening (biomineralization) of the arteries. Additionally, using rats with chronic kidney disease, …

Planetary scientists have long observed water-ice clouds in the Martian middle atmosphere (18.6-37.2 miles, or 30-60 km, above the surface). Now, a University of Colorado, Boulder-led study suggests that those clouds owe their existence to a phenomenon called ‘meteoric smoke.’ NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity imaged these drifting clouds on May …