Science

May Be Smaller and Rounder than Previously Thought The heliosphere is a giant magnetic bubble that contains our Solar System, the solar wind and the solar magnetic field. Outside the heliosphere is the interstellar medium — the ionized gas and magnetic field that fills the space between stellar systems in …

Juno Discovers ‘Shallow Lightning’ on Jupiter An unexpected form of electrical discharge, ‘shallow lightning’ originates from Jovian clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, according to a new analysis of data collected by the Stellar Reference Unit instrument onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft. This illustration uses data obtained by NASA’s Juno mission to …

Archaeologists from the Pennsylvania State University and the Université libre de Bruxelles have found a stone offering box near a reef close to the north-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca, which is located in the Andes between Bolivia and Peru. The carved stone box contained a llama carved from a Spondylus …

NASA’s Curiosity rover has seen a lot since August 5, 2012, when it first set its wheels inside the huge basin of Gale Crater. Curiosity rover took this selfie on October 11, 2019. The rover drilled twice in this location, nicknamed Glen Etive. Just left of the rover are the …

A team of archaeologists has uncovered two ancient archery platforms and a huge open-air altar on the Polynesian atoll of Teti’aroa, once owned by Hollywood icon Marlon Brando. The finds are the strongest evidence yet that the island, located 52 km (30 miles) north of Tahiti, was the exclusive preserve …

The partial skeletal remains of an enantiornithine bird that lived 99 million years ago (Cretaceous period) have been found preserved in a piece of amber from northern Myanmar (Burma). Photograph of the amber specimen from the Angbamo site, Myanmar. Scale bar – 5 cm. Image credit: Xing et al, doi: …

A team of mycologists from Oregon State University, the USDA Forestry Sciences Laboratory and Michigan State University has discovered a new species of spiny-spored truffle in the United States. Spores of Tuber luomae. Image credit: Joyce Eberhart. Truffles are the fruiting bodies of subterranean ascomycete fungi, predominantly one of the …

An international team of marine biologists has for the first time genetically identified a larva of the bump-head sunfish (Mola alexandrini). A larval sunfish (Mola sp.) collected off New South Wales coast, Australia. Image credit: Kerryn Parkinson / Australian Museum. The bump-head sunfish, also known as the southern sunfish or …

Chemists Find Biologically Active Sugar in Honey of Stingless Bees An unusual bioactive disaccharide called trehalulose is a major component of stingless bee honeys from Malaysia, Australia and Brazil, according to a new study led by researchers from the University of Queensland and the Universiti Putra Malaysia. Tetragonula carbonaria. Image …

A team of researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Harvard University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland has demonstrated efficient gene knockout in the longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) using CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing system. Crawford et al demonstrated that squid genes can be efficiently disrupted using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Image credit: …