Science

A team of researchers from Fairfield University and Yale University has evaluated data from 5,293 U.S. adults and found that smokers consumed around 200 more calories a day, despite eating significantly smaller portions of food, than non-smokers or former smokers. The study appears in the journal BMC Public Health. MacLean …

An international team of paleontologists from the University of Edinburgh, Staffin Museum and Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered a new dinosaur tracksite at Rubha nam Brathairean (Brothers’ Point) on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Photograph and line drawing of a sauropod footprint, one of the most striking at Brothers’ …

Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), also known as snow monkeys, are the world’s most northerly species of non-human primates. They have been enjoying regular baths in the hot spring at Jigokudani in Japan for decades. Kyoto University researcher Rafaela Takeshita and co-authors have now published the first study to validate the …

The planet Venus is not usually what you’d think of as “habitable,” with its clouds of sulfuric acid and atmospheric pressure 92 times higher than Earth. The surface temperature is roughly 870 degrees Fahrenheit (465 degrees Celsius), which is hot enough to melt lead, so it’s safe to say life …

The Hubble Space Telescope is getting on toward the end of its useful life, but this instrument is still making breakthrough discoveries and setting records. A series of observations in 2016 happened to spot an unexpected object in the sky, and that object turns out to be the most distant …

Analyses of numerous spear points with fluted edges found in northern Alaska and Yukon, and artifacts from further south in Canada, the Great Plains, and eastern United States, prove that the Ice Age peopling of the Americas was much more complex than previously believed. The findings, published in the Proceedings of …

According to a new study, Saniwa ensidens — an extinct monitor lizard that lived in what is now Wyoming 51-49 million years ago (Eocene epoch) — had four eyes, a first among known jawed vertebrates. The third and fourth eyes refer to pineal and parapineal organs, eye-like photosensory structures on …

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is an egg-laying mammal which, alongside the echidna, occupies a unique place in the mammalian family tree. The unique creature had its genome sequenced a decade ago, revealing its unique genetic makeup and its divergence from the rest of the mammals around 160 million years ago. …

Update 4/2/18: As predicted, the Chinese space station hit the atmosphere over the weekend. Specifically, Tiangong-1 reentered the atmosphere at 8:16 PM EDT Sunday, April 1. We knew the station would re-enter between 42.8 degrees north and south latitude, but the longitude was unclear until right before the end. The station ended up coming down …

Over their short lifetimes though, bird eggshells change their strength: they get thinner and weaker before hatching begins. Now, an international team of scientists led by McGill University has zeroed in on the fine structure and mechanical properties of chicken eggshells, and shell changes associated with chick hatching. Their work …