Science

Consuming moderate amounts of chocolate with high cocoa content was associated with lower risk of being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation — a common and potentially life threatening type of irregular heartbeat — in a study of men and women in Denmark. According to Mostofsky et al, moderate chocolate intake may …

A team of theoretical physicists at the University of Cambridge, UK, has used computer simulations to predict the existence of a so-called naked singularity, which interferes with Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. A simulated black hole of 10 solar masses as seen from a distance of 370 miles. Image …

An international team of taxonomists led by experts at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) selected the top 10 from among the approximately 18,000 new species named during 2016 and released the list this week to coincide with the birthday, May 23, of Carolus Linnaeus. Linnaeus is …

Stars don’t come much weirder than KIC 8462852, known colloquially as Tabby’s star. You may be more familiar with it as the “alien megastructure star.” Astronomers have been puzzling over the seemingly random dips in brightness from Tabby’s star, and one of the explanations put forward is that aliens have …

According to new research, some of Earth’s atmosphere was brought to the planet by comets billions of years ago. This artwork shows a rocky planet being bombarded by comets. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech. The mystery of how the Earth’s atmosphere was formed has long baffled scientists. Some think comets …

After decades of research aiming to understand how DNA is organized in our cells, a team of researchers from the Gladstone Institutes, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and elsewhere has shed new light on this field by discovering how a key protein helps control gene organization. The study is published …

NASA’s Juno spacecraft successfully made its sixth close flyby of Jupiter on Friday, May 19, 2017, at 2 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. UTC; 11 p.m. PDT on May 18). Juno captured this image 6,247 miles (10,053) km from Jupiter’s cloud tops during its close flyby on May 19, 2017. Image …

We won’t know if Proxima b is habitable until we can get some sharp telescopes pointed straight at it, which doesn’t happen until next year. But until then, everyone’s an armchair astronomer, speculating about the little red dot. What if it’s habitable? It lies within the habitable radius around its …

A long-held archaeological mystery has been solved as researchers have revealed the exact location, extent and character of a huge winter camp of the Viking army at Torksey, Lincolnshire, of CE 872-873. A 21st-century view looking east across the River Trent to the prominent bluff and the Viking winter camp. …

Saturn’s hazy moon Titan, Earth and Mars have all hosted rivers at some point in their histories. Planetary researchers from the City University of New York (CUNY) and elsewhere analyzed drainage patterns on all three bodies to shed light on their geologic past. It’s raining on Titan. Image credit: David …