Science

Two new Early Cretaceous specimens from the Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight, UK, represent distinct and novel genera and species of spinosaurids: Ceratosuchops inferodios and Riparovenator milnerae, according to a team of paleontologists led by the University of Southampton. Artist’s impressions of Ceratosuchops inferodios (foreground) and Riparovenator milnerae …

Scientists have described a new species of the crayfish genus Cherax from the Murray-Darling Basin in eastern Australia. The swamp yabby (Cherax latimanus). Image credit: McCormack & Raadik, doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.5026.3.2. Cherax is the most widespread genus of fully aquatic crayfish in the southern hemisphere. Commonly known as yabbies, members of …

Using LiDAR data, archaeologists from Brown University, the University of Texas at Austin, the Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya and Proyecto Arqueológico Sur de Tikal discovered that what was long assumed to be an area of natural hills in the Classic Maya city of Tikal, Guatemala, was actually a …

Archaeologists have found evidence that in 1650 BCE (Middle Bronze Age), a cosmic airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, an ancient walled city in the Jordan Valley close to the north end of the Dead Sea. An eyewitness description of this catastrophic event — which was larger than the 1908 explosion over Tunguska …

The isotope tin-100 is of interest for nuclear structure due to its closed-shell proton and neutron configurations. It is also the heaviest nucleus comprising protons and neutrons in equal numbers. In new research, physicists from the ISOLTRAP experiment at CERN’s Isotope mass Separator On-Line (ISOLDE) facility performed direct mass measurements …

As early as 18,000 years ago, early foragers in the montane rainforests of New Guinea preferentially collected eggs of cassowaries (Casuarius sp.) in late stages of embryonic growth and may have hatched them to rear chicks, according to an analysis of ancient eggshells from two Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene rock shelter …

A new genus and species of extinct predatory bird has been identified from a fossilized partial skeleton unearthed in South Australia. Life reconstruction of Archaehierax sylvestris. Image credit: Jacob Blokland / Taylor & Francis Online. The newly-identified bird species lived during the Late Oligocene epoch approximately 25 million years ago. …

Using machine learning, a team of physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has studied the phase behaviors of superionic water — a phase of water where hydrogen atoms become liquid-like while oxygen atoms remain solid-like on a crystalline lattice — with unprecedented resolution. Hydrogen atoms diffuse easily between the superionic …

The newly-discovered dinosaur species, Spicomellus afer, is the earliest-known ankylosaur and the first ankylosaur to be named from Africa. Life reconstruction of the armored dinosaur Borealopelta markmitchelli, which lived in what is now Alberta, Canada, some 110 million years ago, eating ferns. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi / Royal Tyrrell Museum. …

To truly understand the essence of something, pelt it with projectiles. That has long been the preferred approach of some physicists, anyway. These scientists routinely study the subtle properties of solids by bombarding them with charged particles and watching for those that bounce off, get stuck or pass through to …