Science

New research has found that most waves on Titan’s seas of liquid hydrocarbons are diminutive, reaching only about 1 cm (0.4 inches) high and 20 cm (8 inches) long — a finding that indicates a serene environment that could be good news for future robotic lander missions to Saturn’s hazy …

Earth has been hit by large asteroids and comets many times in the past, and it’s a matter of when rather than if it happens again. There weren’t any humans on Earth for the large impacts in the past, some of which led to mass extinctions. That’s something everyone can …

Named Razanandrongobe sakalavae, the ancient predatory crocodile had a deep skull and powerful jaws with enormous serrated teeth that are similar in size and shape to those of Tyrannosaurus rex, according to new research led by Dr. Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Natural History Museum of Milan. Razanandrongobe sakalavae scavenging …

While modern marine concrete structures crumble within years, ancient Roman piers and breakwaters endure to this day, and are stronger now than when they were first constructed. New research led by the University of Utah has found that seawater filtering through the concrete leads to the growth of interlocking minerals …

Mars experienced a single colossal impact during its first 130 million years, the equivalent to the largest body in the today’s asteroid belt slamming into the red planet. This is the result of models developed by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, who …

A team of European researchers has developed a prototype of a compact multi-laser-beam device that can read your heart’s vital signs like a supermarket barcode reader can scan items at the checkout, allowing a general practitioner to diagnose even preclinical patients for the early onset of a disease. The CARDIS …

A team of archaeologists and anthropologists, led by the University of Utah, has discovered potato starch residues in the crevices of a 10,900-year-old stone tool in Escalante, southern Utah — the earliest evidence of wild potato use in North America. This is the first archaeological study to identify a spud-bearing …

A new hummingbird species, called the dry-forest sabrewing, has been discovered in the tropical forests of eastern Brazil. A young male of the dry-forest sabrewing (Campylopterus calcirupicola) captured in the Fazenda Corredor, municipality of Bocaiúva, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Image credit: Leonardo Esteves Lopes. Dr. Leonardo Lopes, an ornithologist at the …

A team of researchers at the University of Florida has found genes known to form heart cells in humans and other animals in the gut of the starlet sea anemone (Nematostella vectensis), a brainless, muscle-less and heartless marine animal native to the east coast of the United States. The findings …

Palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus) not only play the drums, they craft the sticks too, according to new research from scientists in Australia. Male palm cockatoo (Probosciger aterrimus) drumming on a hollow tree with a manufactured ‘drumstick.’ Image credit: Christina Zdenek. The palm cockatoo is a large smoky-grey or black parrot …