Science

A team of physicists from the Universities of Vermont and Waterloo has discovered that a sphere of cold helium atoms follows a bizarre law of physics — called an entanglement area law — also observed in black holes. The discovery is reported March 13 in the online edition of the …

Physics is sometimes closer to philosophy when it comes to understanding the Universe. Dr. Donald Chang, a physicist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, attempts to elucidate whether the Universe has a resting frame. An experiment proposed by Dr. Donald Chang aims at resolving divergence between special …

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 …

Stanford researchers have hacked the Lego Mindstorms platform as a springboard to create a liquid-handling robotics kit, using inexpensive, off-the-shelf parts. They’re hoping to get the kits into classrooms and STEM-curious kids’ hands as soon as possible, to open up the “wet sciences” — biology, chemistry, and medicine — for …

A team of paleontologists from the University of Cambridge and the Natural History Museum, London, UK, has proposed radical changes to the dinosaur family tree, based on their careful analysis of dozens of fossil skeletons and tens of thousands of anatomical characters. The research by Baron et al provides important …

A study published this week in the journal Science summarizes the types of surface changes — including the growing fractures, collapsing cliffs, rolling boulders and moving material — observed during Rosetta’s two years at 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Showcase of the different types of changes identified in high-resolution images of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko during more …

A 20-year demographic study of a relatively undisturbed and exceptionally large community of eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, southwestern Uganda, has revealed that our close primate relatives can lead surprisingly long lives in the wild. A member of the Ngogo community of chimpanzees in Uganda’s …

According to new research reported in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the 10-mile- (16 km) high Martian shield volcano called Arsia Mons produced one new lava flow at its summit every 1 to 3 million years during the final peak of activity; the last volcanic activity there ceased …

Kirby Runyon, a PhD candidate in planetary geology at the Johns Hopkins University, and co-authors are proposing to rewrite the textbooks to say that the Solar System has 110 planets. Every discovered planet in the Solar System under 10,000 km in diameter, to scale. The geophysical definition of planet includes …

Growing global temperatures may be playing a part in the rising numbers of people developing type 2 diabetes, suggests new research from the Leiden University Medical Center and the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Map of the United States (including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico), showing the mean annual …