Science

Surprisingly, the Schrödinger Equation — the fundamental equation of quantum mechanics — emerges while studying massive astronomical structures. Propagation of waves through an astrophysical disk can be understood using the Schrödinger Equation. Image credit: James Tuttle Keane, California Institute of Technology. Massive astronomical objects are frequently encircled by groups of …

Ancient Egyptians were getting inked up earlier than we thought. A new analysis of 2 mummies shows the pair were sporting tattoos. The mummies belong to a collection of 6 found in 1900. They were named the Gebelein mummies after the area in which they were discovered. Now in the …

SpaceX has yet another Falcon 9 launch scheduled for tomorrow, and there’s something special about this one, but it’s not the payload. When this rocket lifts off, it’ll be the 50th launch of a Falcon 9 since SpaceX first sent the vehicle up in 2010. This doesn’t include the recent …

An international team of biologists from Poland and Japan has discovered and described a new species of tardigrade. Details of the micro-animal’s discovery are published in the journal PLoS ONE. Macrobiotus shonaicus. Scale bars in ?m. Image credit: Stec et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192210. First discovered in 1773 by the German …

The tiny fossil of a juvenile enantiornithe bird from the Early Cretaceous La Huérguina Formation of Spain is helping paleontologists understand how early birds came into the world in the age of dinosaurs. Artist impression of a juvenile enantiornithe bird. Image credit: Raúl Martín. The 127-million-year-old fossil is a chick …

An international team of physicists from Amherst College and Aalto University has created the Shankar skyrmion, a quasiparticle consisting of a knotted configuration of atomic magnetic moments, or spins. Theoretical physicists predicted the existence of the Shankar skyrmion more than four decades ago, but this is the first time such …

A recent expedition to the Danger Islands, a chain of remote islands off the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, used new technologies to discover and survey a breeding colony of over 1.5 million Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). The discovery is reported in the journal Scientific Reports. Borowicz et al …

A team of marine biologists from the Fisheries and Marine Institute of the Memorial University of Newfoundland has filmed Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) in their natural habitat in the waters of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Juvenile Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus). Image credit: Devine et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-19115-x. One of very …

According to an observational study published in the journal JAMA, varicose veins may be a warning sign of a type of blood clot known as a deep venous thrombosis. Chang et al found a significant association between varicose veins and DVT. The illustration shows how a varicose vein forms in …

Neuronal cell types in the avian brains linked to goal-directed behaviors and cognition are similar to cells in a region of the mammalian brain called the neocortex, says a new study led by University of Chicago’s Professor Clifton Ragsdale. According to Briscoe et al, IT neurons were present in the …