Science

In a new study published this month in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics: X, a team of scientists at Washington University in St. Louis showed how they were able to hijack the olfactory system of the American grasshopper (Schistocerca americana) to both detect and discriminate between different explosive scents — …

An international team of researchers has sequenced and analyzed a complete nuclear genome and 14 mitochondrial genomes from the extinct woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and found that its population remained stable and diverse until only a few thousand years before it disappeared from Siberia, when temperatures likely rose too high …

Torres Strait Islanders Cultivated Torres Strait Islanders CultivatedNew research suggests Indigenous people on the tiny island of Mabuyag in the western Torres Strait, Australia, practiced banana (Musa cultivars) cultivation as long ago as 145 BCE. Terraced banana cultivation site at Wagadagam, Mabuyag Island, Australia. Image credit: Australian National University. Various …

Scientists have discovered a new population of taste cells that can detect multiple types of stimuli, including chemicals from different taste qualities. Most taste cells selectively respond to a specific stimulus type while broadly responsive cells respond to multiple taste qualities. Image credit: Jhanna Flora / Kathryn Medler. Taste buds …

Using images from ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite, a team of researchers from the British Antarctic Survey has spotted 8 new colonies of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) and confirmed the discovery of three previously identified but never confirmed breeding sites. This discovery, described in a paper in the journal Remote Sensing …

A new genus and species of theropod dinosaur from the Cretaceous period has been identified from bones found on the Isle of Wight, the United Kingdom. An artist’s impression of Vectaerovenator inopinatus’ final moments. Image credit: Trudie Wilson. The newly-discovered dinosaur roamed the Earth approximately 115 million years ago (Cretaceous …

Extinct semi-aquatic beavers of the genus Dipoides lived 4 million years ago (Pliocene epoch) in the Canadian High Arctic and were approximately two-thirds the size of today’s North American beavers (Castor canadensis). They gnawed trees with rounded front teeth, not squared teeth like their modern relatives. A team of paleontologists …

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Kinneret Academic College have uncovered the ruins of a 1,300-year-old church at the Circassian village of Kfar Kama in Israel. Mosaic floor of the Byzantine-period church at Kfar Kama, Israel. Image credit: Alex Wiegmann, Israel Antiquities Authority. “The church measures 12 by 36 …

An international team of archaeologists has excavated and examined 8,000-year-old projectile points (spear- and arrowheads) at two sites in Yemen and Oman. They’ve found that ancient Arabians independently invented a process to create distinctive projectile points — called fluting — that was first used by Native Americans about 5,000 years …

A new species of crocodilian related to modern alligators has been identified from fossils found in Mississippi and Alabama, the United States. Named Deinosuchus schwimmeri, it lived between 75 and 82 million years ago (Cretaceous period) and had teeth the ‘size of bananas,’ capable to take down even the very …