Science

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been in the Martian orbit for 13 years, and just completed 60,000 trips around the planet. An artist’s concept of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA. Since entering orbit on March 10, 2006, MRO has been collecting daily science about the planet’s surface …

Compounds in blueberries may help to improve blood vessel function and reduce systolic blood pressure, according to a new study published in the Journals of Gerontology: Series A. Eating 200 g of blueberries every day for a month can lead to an improvement in blood vessel function and a decrease …

  Stars are not forever, although they have lifetimes measured in millions of billions of years. When they finally reach the end of their life, most of the planets that have called a solar system home will be blasted to pieces or ejected into deep space. New research from the …

  Beresheet was supposed to be the first privately built spacecraft to land on the moon, and it technically succeeded in that task. The probe, built by Israel-based SpaceIL, lost contact with Earth during its landing on April 11, resulting in a crash landing. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed …

The more regularly adults aged 50 and over played puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku, the better their brain function, according to new research led by the University of Exeter, UK. Regular word and number puzzles linked to sharper brain in later life. Image credit: Steve Buissinne. University of Exeter’s …

Naïve chimpanzees are able to spontaneously use tools in order to excavate underground food, according to a new study, published in the journal PLoS ONE. The animals prefer longer tools for excavation and exhibit six different tool use behaviors in the context of excavation: digging, probing, perforating, pounding, shoveling and …

  SpaceX hoped to have 60 custom communication satellites in orbit today, but instead, it has zero. The private spaceflight company scrubbed the first attempted launch of its Starlink internet satellites on Wednesday this week, and now a second launch has been aborted. It’s not mother nature’s fault, though. SpaceX …

In 2010, an analysis of images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found that the Moon shriveled like a raisin as its interior cooled, leaving behind thousands of cliffs called thrust faults on the lunar surface. A new analysis of archival data from seismometers deployed during Apollo missions gives the …

An international team of researchers led by Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and the U.S. Department of Agriculture- Agricultural Research Service has created a pan-genome that captures all of the genetic information of 725 cultivated and wild tomatoes, establishing a resource that promises to help breeders develop more flavorful …

Walnuts are a rich source of polyunsaturated fatty acids, including alpha-linolenic acid and the linoleic acid, and contain a proportionally greater quantity of polyphenolic compounds compared with other tree nuts and vegetable oils. In a new randomized, controlled trial, a team of researchers from the Pennsylvania State University and the …