Science

  There are numerous risks associated with sending someone into space — it’s a completely foreign environment where even a small mistake can spell disaster. Our squishy Earth-bound bodies are so unaccustomed to space that simply being in microgravity can be dangerous long-term. The key to safer human space travel …

Minoan Linear A is still an undeciphered script mainly used on the island of Crete from 1700 to 1400 BCE. A new study published in the published in the Journal of Archaeological Science sheds light on one of the most enigmatic features of Linear A — the precise mathematical values …

A team of researchers from Tel Aviv University and Duke University and an expert from Israel Police has analyzed 18 ancient inscriptions dating back to around 600 BCE from Arad, a well preserved desert fort on the southern frontier of the Biblical Kingdom of Judah, and found that the texts …

The so-called self-interacting dark matter theory helps explain why NGC 1052-DF2 and NGC 1052-DF4, a pair of ultra-diffuse galaxies located approximately 65 million light-years away the constellation of Cetus, contain little dark matter. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took this image of NGC 1052-DF2 on November 16, 2017. Image credit: …

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, launched in 2016, is currently orbiting the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu with the aim of briefly touching on the surface and obtaining a sample from the asteroid in October 2020, and then returning to Earth. Shortly after entering orbit around Bennu, the spacecraft’s instruments detected asteroid activity …

A new genus and species of small-bodied fossil ape that lived during the Middle Miocene epoch has been identified from a fossilized tooth found in Ramnagar, India. The discovery fills temporal, morphological, and biogeographic gaps in hominoid evolution and provides new evidence about when the ancestors of modern gibbons migrated to …

According to new research published in the journal Animal Behaviour, European herring gulls (Larus argentatus) — a large species of seabird in the family Laridae — notice where approaching humans are looking and flee sooner when they’re being watched. Herring gulls. Image credit: Georg Wietschorke. With an increasing human population …

In a study published in the Journal of Morphology, an international team of scientists has pieced together the ancestral relationships that make up the family tree of hillstream loaches (Balitoridae), detailing for the first time a range of unusual pelvic adaptations across the family that have given some of its …

An international team of scientists has discovered stylistically unique ancient drawings, including the only known prehistoric depiction of a now-extinct giant sloth lemur, on the walls of a rock shelter in western Madagascar. Photograph (top) and artist’s sketch (bottom) of the inferred hunting scene: hunter (background, left) extends weapon toward …

Paleontologists in Mongolia have found the fossilized remains of Minjinia turgenensis, a new genus and species of placoderm fish that lived 410 million years ago (Early Devonian epoch). They’ve examined a partial braincase and skull roof of Minjinia turgenensis and found extensive endochondral bone, the hard bone that makes up …