Science

Chimpanzees share our human ability to amass knowledge, a new study led by a University of St Andrews researcher has found. Chimpanzees share the human capacity to build on the knowledge of others. Image credit: Marcel Langthim. The ability to achieve great feats by building on the work of others …

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s massive new aircraft, the Stratolaunch, is complete and has rolled out of its hanger for first time. The Stratolaunch has been six years in the making; Allen developed it to launch rockets inexpensively into low earth orbit for commercial, governmental, and philanthropic organizations to gather data and …

A virus can cause illness and even death if you become infected with the wrong one. However, a virus has no malicious intentions; it’s simply a bundle of genetic code programmed to make copies of itself. Researchers have been exploring ways to hijack the functionality of a virus to deliver …

Earth’s earliest primates were tree dwellers, according to a team of paleontologists led by Dr. Stephen Chester, an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Skeleton composite of Torrejonia wilsoni: most elements of the composite skeleton are in ventral view, but some elements are oriented differently to …

Fracture-associated ‘halos’ of lighter-toned bedrock have been found on the lower north slope of Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) in Gale crater, Mars, indicating that the Red Planet had liquid water much longer than previously believed. Pale zones called ‘halos’ border bedrock fractures visible in this 2015 image (colorized) from the …

A team of researchers at the Scripps Research Institute has structurally modified vancomycin to make an already-powerful version of the antibiotic even more potent. This digitally-colorized scanning electron microscopic image depicts Enterococcus faecalis. Image credit: Pete Wardell / CDC. The original form of vancomycin is an ideal starting place for …

The first ExoMars spacecraft arrived in orbit of Mars last October as part of a join European-Russian mission to search for evidence of life on the red planet. However, the Schiaparelli lander encountered issues during its descent and was lost. Now, an analysis from the European Space Agency (ESA) details …

As CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing starts to move into clinical trials, a research team led by scientists at Columbia University Medical Center has found that this technology can introduce hundreds of unintended mutations into the genome. CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can cause hundreds of unintended mutations. Image credit: Lisichik. CRISPR-Cas9 editing technology …

Saturn’s solstice — the longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere and the shortest day of winter in the southern hemisphere — arrived this month for the giant planet and its moons. The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the …

Herpetologists are claiming they have discovered a new species of frog living in the Amazonian lowlands of Ecuador. The Yaku glassfrog (Hyalinobatrachium yaku) in life. Top row: adult male, holotype, in dorsal and ventral view. Bottom row: adult male, paratype. Image credit: Guayasamin et al, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.673.12108. The glassfrogs, or …