Science

A team of nuclear physicists from the Washington University, St. Louis, Michigan State University, Western Michigan University and the University of Connecticut has created and characterized ‘featherweight’ oxygen — the lightest-ever version of the familiar oxygen, with only three neutrons to its eight protons. The results appear in the journal …

An international team led by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München scientist Mark Scherz has described a new genus and five new species of tiny frogs from the island of Madagascar. Mini mum in Manombo Special Reserve, lateral view on a thumbnail. Image credit: Scherz et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213314. “The five new species belong …

A new species of mastodon that lived during the Pleistocene period has been identified from fossil found in California and Idaho. The Pacific mastodon (Mammut pacificus), holotype skull and tusks; a skull in: (A) dorsal, (B) ventral, (C) left lateral, (D) right lateral, (E) posterior, (F) distal end of left …

  Asteroids don’t usually put on a light show, but astronomers from Queen’s University Belfast have spotted one doing just that. The 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) object known as (6478) Gault is spinning so fast that it’s tearing itself to pieces. The result is a comet-like tail, which attracted the attention of …

Physicists from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) Collaboration announced this week the discovery of a new pentaquark particle, Pc(4312)+, decaying to a proton and a J/ψ meson, a particle composed of a charm quark and a charm antiquark. Illustration of the possible layout of the quarks in a pentaquark …

Backyard bird feeding is a popular form of human-wildlife interaction in certain regions of the northern and southern hemisphere including North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Given its scale, it can have profound consequences for the ecology of feeder birds and their behavior. In a new study, researchers from …

  Some events in the universe are so cataclysmic the ripples in space-time can spread across billion so flight years. The existence of these “gravitational waves” was the last major prediction in Einstein’s general relativity, and scientists confirmed it in 2016 thanks to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project. …

Frequently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages (carbonated and noncarbonated soft drinks, fruit drinks, energy drinks, and sports drinks) was associated with an increased risk of mortality from cardiovascular diseases and, to a lesser extent, cancers, according to a new study. Substituting one sugary drink a day with an artificially sweetened drink was …

A duo of arachnologists from Brazil has discovered a new species of short-tailed whip scorpion in eastern Amazon. Male of Surazomus saturninoae: (A) lateral, (B) dorsal and (C) ventral views. Image credit: G.R.S. Ruiz R.M. Valente, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213268. “Schizomida (schizomids) are an order of small arachnids that display short-range endemism …

  The ESO (European Southern Observatory) has announced the successful observation of an exoplanet using optical interferometry. It’s the first time an exoplanet has been “seen” in this manner and the technique offers a promising example of how we might discern new information about the atmospheres of exoplanets. Such investigations …