Science

According to an international team of scientists who have sequenced the genome of a 5,310-year-old maize cob from the Tehuacan Valley, the maize (Zea mays) grown in central Mexico more than five millennia ago was genetically more similar to modern maize than to its wild counterpart. A 5,310-year-old maize cob …

Scientists from the University of Illinois have boosted crop yields in a revolutionary procedure that genetically enhances photosynthesis. The UN claims that in 2050, humanity will need to produce 70% more food than we do today. The researchers claim this new discovery will help bridge the gap towards feeding a …

An international team of researchers led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, has developed a novel technique for gene silencing in human T-lymphocytes (T-cells), a type of immune cells. Left: an illustration of GapmeR design, cellular internalization leading to specific gene silencing. Right: super-resolution microscopy of GapmeR co-localization with SNX5 protein …

New research suggests that smallpox may not be an ancient disease but a much more modern killer that went on to become the first human disease eradicated by vaccination. The findings appear today in the journal Current Biology. This transmission electron micrograph depicts a number of variola virions. Image credit: …

Saturn’s rings are billions of years younger than we thought, say Cornell University researchers analyzing an almost forgotten set of data, collected 10 years ago by NASA’s Cassini mission. This image is a view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope taken on March 22, 2004. Camera exposures in four filters …

A small globular object found by NASA’s Curiosity rover at the Murray Formation of lower Mount Sharp on Mars has been identified as an iron-nickel meteorite. The smooth-surfaced rock at the center of this Oct. 30 image from Curiosity’s Mast Camera was examined by the rover’s ChemCam instrument and confirmed …

An unusual depression in the northern Hellas basin on Mars could be a new place to look for life on the planet, says a team of planetary researchers. The depression was probably formed by a volcano beneath a glacier and could have been a warm environment well suited for microbial …

The latest image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows parts of ESA’s ExoMars Schiaparelli lander and its crash site in color. On November 1, HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observed the impact site of Schiaparelli lander, gaining the first …

A cold, slushy ocean lying deep beneath Pluto’s bright, heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio is the best explanation for features revealed by NASA’s New Horizons probe, according to new research. This cutaway image of Pluto shows a section through the area of Sputnik Planitia, with dark blue representing a subsurface ocean and …

New near-infrared images of Saturn from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show the northern polar region including the hexagon and polar vortex. The north polar region of Saturn is pictured in great detail in this Cassini image obtained on July 16, 2016 from a range of one million miles (2 million km). …