Science

A group of paleontologists from the University of Queensland and James Cook University has documented the most diverse assemblage of dinosaur tracks in the world on the north-western coast of Western Australia. Dinosaur tracks in the Walmadany area, Western Australia. Image credit: Steve Salisbury. At least 48 dinosaurian tracksites were …

Using video microscopy in a living mouse lung, a team of researchers at the Universities of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Los Angeles (UCLA), has revealed that the lungs play a previously unrecognized role in blood production. Visualization of resident megakaryocytes in the lungs. Image credit: Emma Lefrançais et al, doi: …

New research from the University of Exeter, UK, has demonstrated that regular consumption of concentrated blueberry juice improves brain function in healthy older adults. Supplementation with an anthocyanin-rich blueberry concentrate improved brain perfusion and activation in brain areas associated with cognitive function in healthy older adults. Image credit: Xicocool. In …

Most large galaxies like our own Milky Way have a supermassive black hole in the center. It’s so common that astronomers just expect to see the telltale signs of a black hole in the heart of galaxies. But a new observation of a galaxy some 8 billion light years away …

It took a lot of clever engineering behind the scenes and some very public failures, but SpaceX has finally worked out the kinks of landing its Falcon 9 rockets after launch. It’s been recovering rockets so frequently that we don’t even cover all the landings anymore, but until now all those …

Exceptionally well-preserved specimens unearthed in Early Cretaceous sediments of Mongolia belong to an ancient, dinosaur-era relative of the living plant Ginkgo biloba (today is native only to China). Reconstruction of Umaltolepis mongoliensis showing four seed-bearing structures and attached Pseudotorellia resinosa leaves. Note that three seed-bearing organs have split at the …

Comets, it turns out, are rather more active places than we thought. Comet 67P, where we left Rosetta and Philae not too long ago, is one such happenin’ spot. Scientists poring over photos by Rosetta and Philae have unearthed evidence of a spectacular landslide on 67P — and we caught …

NASA’s Curiosity rover will have been on Mars for five years come this summer, and it’s held up surprisingly well. The rover’s mission has been extended essentially indefinitely. As long as Curiosity can do science, NASA will make use of it. The harsh Martian terrain has not been kind to …

A fossil crustacean, discovered by a University of Leicester-led team of paleontologists, has been named Cascolus ravitis in honor of the naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, in celebration of his 90th birthday. Cascolus ravitis. Image credit: David J. Siveter et al. Cascolus ravitis, a member of the stem-group of …

A species of frog that is completely new to science has been discovered in the cloud forests of Ecuador. The Ecuadorian rainfrog (Pristimantis ecuadorensis), adult female. Image credit: J.M. Guayasamin et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172615. Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, Professor Juan Guayasamin of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito …