Science

Scientists have announced the first planet found to be orbiting a brown dwarf. It’s a significant discovery and a fascinating window into the evolution of a type of substellar object we don’t know much about. A brown dwarf — sometimes referred to as a failed star — is an object …

The brightness of a star naturally changes throughout its life cycle, but that takes ages and we humans are but a blip on the cosmic timeline. When we see a star’s brightness change, it’s an indication something of cosmological significance is happening. Astronomers have had a hard time figuring out …

Two very unusual pieces of leather have been uncovered during the excavation of a pre-Hadrianic cavalry barrack (c. 100 CE) at the Vindolanda Roman fort in Northumberland, northern England. The Vindolanda boxing gloves (c. 100 CE), probably the only known surviving examples from the Roman period. Image credit: Vindolanda Trust. …

The bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus) — the longest animal on Earth — produces a neurotoxin that can kill both crabs and cockroaches, a team of Swedish scientists has discovered. The bootlace worm (Lineus longissimus). Image credit: Cédric Audibert / AnimalBase Project Group, www.animalbase.uni-goettingen.de. The bootlace worm is a member of …

Physicists from the NA62 Collaboration at CERN reported today that they had observed a candidate event of an extremely rare charged kaon decay (K+ ? ?+??–). NA62 experiment in CERN’s North Area. Image credit: NA62 / CERN. What if the odds of an event occurring were about one in ten …

A daily regimen of non-prescription NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) such as ibuprofen can prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s, according to two new studies published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease, characterized clinically by progressive memory loss, cognitive decline, and aberrant behavior. In Alzheimer’s, …

A team of paleontologists from Yale University, Smithsonian Institution and Johns Hopkins University has discovered a new species of reptile that lived 200 million years ago during the Triassic period, in what is now Connecticut in the United States. An artist’s rendering of Colobops noviportensis. Image credit: Michael Hanson. Dubbed …

A newly-released video, captured in the waters around Portugal’s Azores islands, shows a pair of deep-sea anglerfish called the fanfin angler (Caulophryne jordani) mating: a fearsome-looking female and her parasitically attached mate drift almost helplessly, salvaging precious energy in their dark, food-scarce environment. A pair of fanfin anglers (Caulophryne jordani). …

A new study from the University of Nottingham, UK, shows that the way in which fat is made within the body is not ‘pre-programmed’ during the early years of development as previously thought but even in adulthood cells can be influenced by environment to change the type of fat that …

Eating just 1.5 ounces (42.5 grams) of pecans every day may protect adults at risk for developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in the March 2018 issue of the journal Nutrients. Pecans (Carya illinoinensis). Image credit: Tesa Robbins. A team of researchers from Tufts …