Science

NASA is aiming to have humans on Mars in the next few decades, even if that comes with more risk than we originally thought. Just getting there is only the first challenge. Humans have to be able to survive and explore the red planet, and the agency just unveiled a …

Gondwanagaricites magnificus represents the oldest fossil mushroom to date and the first fossil mushroom from the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. The gilled mushroom Gondwanagaricites magnificus lived during the Early Cretaceous, a time of dinosaurs when Gondwana was breaking apart. Image credit: Heads et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178327. Gondwanagaricites magnificus was about 2 …

An international team of physicists has experimentally demonstrated that superfluid motion of light is possible under ambient conditions. Until now, this phenomenon had only been observed at low cryogenic temperatures. Schematic of the organic microcavity used to observe superfluid flow. Image credit: Polytechnique Montreal. The wave nature of light has …

According to new research published in the journal eLife, the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), a species of giant elephant that lived 1.5 million to 100,000 years ago, is more closely related to the extant African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) than the forest elephant is to its nearest living relative, the …

New research suggests that coffee and herbal tea consumption may protect against liver fibrosis, estimated as the degree of liver stiffness, which is high in extensive scarring of the liver. Alferink et al determined that regular coffee and herbal tea consumption was inversely related with liver stiffness, but not steatosis, …

Elon Musk wants to send humans to Mars by 2024, a proposition that seemed quite optimistic when it was announced last year. New research from the University of Nevada Las Vegas makes Musk’s goal that much less attainable. A new predictive model of radiation effects indicates we could be vastly …

An anti-heroin vaccine created by scientists from the Scripps Research Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University to block the ‘high’ of heroin, a highly abused opioid, has proven effective in rhesus macaques. This is the first vaccine against an opioid to pass this stage of preclinical testing. The anti-heroin vaccine candidate …

A state-of-the-art CT scanning technology has shed fresh light on Megalosaurus bucklandii, the first dinosaur ever named and described scientifically — thanks to new research from the Universities of Warwick and Oxford, UK. Artist’s impression of how Victorian paleontologists thought Megalosaurus bucklandii looked (right), compared with how we now understand …

Millions of people have benefited from pacemakers since the first one was implanted in 1958, but the basics facets of the design have remained unchanged. These devices are still battery-operated, with leads running from the device itself to the heart. Now, researchers from Rice University have developed a battery-free pacemaker …

Scientists reporting in the Journal of Mammalogy on May 30 have identified a new species of flying squirrel living in the Pacific Coast region of North America. The Humboldt’s flying squirrel (Glaucomys oregonensis), the third-known species of flying squirrel in North America and the 45th known species of flying squirrel …