Science

  Quantum computing just plain sounds cool. We’ve all read about the massive investment in making it a reality, and its promise of breakthroughs in many industries. But all that press is usually short on what it is and how it works. That’s for a reason: Quantum computing is quite …

Two groups of archaic humans — Neanderthals and their enigmatic cousins, Denisovans — occupied Denisova Cave in the Altai region of Siberia almost continuously through relatively warm and cold periods over the past 200,000 years, according to two new studies published in the January 31, 2019 issue of the journal …

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe successfully completed its first orbit of the Sun on January 19. Illustration of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Steve Gribben. “It’s been an illuminating and fascinating first orbit,” said Dr. Andy Driesman, Parker …

An international team of scientists has sequenced and analyzed the genomes of representatives from all five major clades within the birds-of-paradise family (Paradisaeidae): the paradise crow (Lycocorax pyrrhopterus) from Obi Island in Indonesia, the paradise riflebird (Ptiloris paradiseus) from New South Wales, Australia, the huon astrapia (Astrapia rothschildi), the King …

A new observational study by researchers from Hong Kong demonstrates that disrupted sleep is associated with DNA damage. The findings appear in the journal Anaesthesia. Sleep deprivation was associated with DNA damage in the new study. Image credit: Arek Socha / Sci-News.com. University of Hong Kong’s Dr. Siu-Wai Choi and …

A team of physicists from the Joint Institute for Lab Astrophysics (JILA) and IMRA America Inc. has measured hundreds of individual quantum energy levels in buckminsterfullerene (nicknamed buckyball), a 60-atom molecule of carbon in the shape of a soccer ball. Changala et al used frequency combs, or ‘rulers of light,’ …

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft has obtained new images of Bennu, a 1,614-foot (492 m) wide asteroid that orbits the Sun relatively close to the Earth. This image of asteroid Bennu was captured on January 17, 2019, from a distance of about one mile. Image …

A lunar rock sample collected by Apollo 14 astronauts in 1971 contains traces of minerals with a chemical composition common to Earth and very unusual for the Moon, according to research led by Dr. Jeremy Bellucci from the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Curtin University’s Professor Alexander Nemchin. The …

  The Curiosity rover has already made history after covering the most ground on another planet and helping scientists reconstruct the geological history of Mars. While it’s moved more than 12 miles (almost 20 kilometers), Curiosity has been hanging around the Vera Rubin Ridge for over a year. It’s getting …

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has beamed back the most detailed image yet of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule (2014 MU69). This image from NASA’s New Horizons probe shows a Kuiper Belt object called Ultima Thule. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute. …