Science

NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully made its ninth (eighth science) flyby over Jupiter’s mysterious cloud tops on October 24, 2017. This illustration depicts Juno soaring over the south pole of Jupiter. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. “Data returned October 31 indicate that Juno completed its eighth science flyby over Jupiter’s cloud …

A new large species of giraffid being named Decennatherium rex has been discovered by Dr. Maria Rios from the National Museum of Natural History of Spain and co-authors. Reconstruction of the head of an adult female Decennatherium rex. Image credit: Oscar Sanisidro / Anja Cocoparisienne / Sci-News.com. Decennatherium rex lived …

An international team of archaeologists, physicists and engineers has found a 100-foot (30 m) long space deep inside the Great Pyramid, or Khufu’s Pyramid, one of the oldest and largest monuments on Earth. A paper reporting this discovery is published in the journal Nature. Pyramids at Giza in Egypt. Image …

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) have individually distinct biases in ‘left- and right-handedness’ when flying through obstacles, according to new research from the University of Queensland’s Brain Institute, Australia. According to Ong et al, honeybees have individual flying direction preferences. Image credit: Walter Bichler. “Our study showed that honeybees displayed handedness that …

An international group of scientists has demonstrated that iridium — a very hard, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group — can be used to kill cancer cells by filling them with deadly version of oxygen, without harming healthy tissue. The study is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Pieces …

A team of physicists at ETH Zürich in Switzerland has produced the shortest-ever laser pulses: just 43 attoseconds (an attosecond is an incomprehensible quintillionith of a second). The feat surpasses the prior record of 53 attoseconds, set earlier this year. Dr. Thomas Gaumnitz, a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Wörner’s group, …

Personal genetic testing firm 23andMe sells genetic testing kits to consumers as a business, but it also contributes useful medical data that could help cure disease. The company has announced an expansion of its Parkinson’s disease research in cooperation with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. The foundation …

An international team of researchers has identified a new species of orangutan living on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Named the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), the species is already at a high risk of extinction, with an estimated 800 individuals living in the upland forest regions of the island. The …

A bone-derived hormone called osteocalcin is known to affect how we metabolize sugar and fat. In a new study, Professor Mathieu Ferron of the Université de Montréal and the Montreal Clinical Research Institute and co-authors have investigated how osteocalcin works. The results may open the door to new ways of …

A team of Chinese scientists has successfully sequenced and analyzed the genome of Rangifer tarandus (reindeer), the only fully domesticated species in the deer family Cervidae. The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). Rangifer tarandus is native to arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. Reindeer …