Science

A new genus and species of dsungaripterid pterosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous epoch has been identified from the incomplete lower jaws found in China. Life reconstruction of Ordosipterus planignathus. Image credit: Chuang Zhao. Pterosaurs are highly successful flying reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, between …

Consuming a high-flavanol diet was associated with a significantly lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure and was inversely associated with blood lipids in a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports. Flavanols are a large group of flavonoids, which include catechin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate and epigallocatechin gallate. They …

  NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has completed the most critical phase of its mission: booping an asteroid. The probe has been orbiting the asteroid Bennu for almost two years, but yesterday it descended to the surface to scoop up a few grams of precious primordial material for eventual return to Earth. …

Our body contains a pair of previously overlooked and clinically relevant nasopharyngeal salivary glands, according to new research led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the University of Amsterdam. Sparing these newly-identified glands, named the ‘tubarial glands,’ in patients receiving radiotherapy may provide an opportunity to improve their quality of …

Archaeologists with the Nazca-Palpa Management Plan of Peru’s Ministry of Culture have discovered a 2,100-year-old figure of a relaxing feline in the Nazca Desert, southern Peru. This image shows the figure of a feline on a hillside in the Nazca Desert, southern Peru. Image credit: La Oficina de Comunicación e …

In a paper published this month in the journal Physical Review Letters, an international team of physicists described a new mechanism of dark matter production. Baker et al. described a new mechanism of dark matter production: if dark matter particles acquire mass during a first order phase transition, it is …

On October 20, 2020, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft briefly touched an asteroid to collect regolith (rocks and dust) from the surface of the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu. All spacecraft telemetry data indicates the sample collection event, known as ‘Touch-And-Go’ (TAG), executed as expected. …

The Antarctica’s ozone hole has now reached its maximum size, according to an analysis of data collected by ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite. This year’s ozone hole over Antarctica is one of the largest in recent years. Image credit: ESA. Each year for the past few decades during the southern hemisphere …

  NASA’s InSight Lander made history when it became the first mission to take seismic readings on another planet, but the lander’s other major experiment hasn’t been as successful. The mission’s burrowing heat probe, sometimes called the “Mole,” has struggled to even make it underground, but NASA has finally reported …

A team of archaeologists from the United Kingdom and Germany has carried out an archaeobotanical analysis of plant remains recovered from the 3,500-year-old royal storage complex at the site of the ancient Hittite capital city of Hattusha. During its zenith, the Hittite empire rivaled and threatened ancient Egypt. Hattusha, also …