Science

  SpaceX can move forward with its plans to build rockets in Los Angeles following a unanimous vote by the LA City Council. The 12-0 vote paves the way for Elon Musk’s spaceflight company to use a large tract of land at the Port of Los Angeles to conduct research …

Paleontologists in Brazil have found thin bands of fossil gum — the first occurrence in the fossil record — inside 110-million-year-old (Cretaceous period) fossilized leaves of the extinct plant Welwitschiophyllum brasiliense. The discovery of fossilized plant gum is unusual because of its solubility in water. Orange-colored gum ducts (arrows) in …

A nocturnal primate called the Taita Mountain dwarf galago (Paragalago sp.) has been rediscovered by a team of researchers from the University of Helsinki, Oxford Brookes University and Kenya Forest Service. The Taita Mountain dwarf galago photographed in Ngangao Forest in 2019. Image credit: Hanna Rosti. The Taita Mountain dwarf …

An international team of biologists has discovered that a tiny parasite of salmon called Henneguya salminicola has no mitochondrial genome and thus has lost the ability to perform aerobic respiration. Henneguya salminicola, also known as Henneguya zschokkei, has large nuclei but surprisingly no mitochondrial nucleosomes. Image credit: Yahalomi et al, …

In a study published this month in the journal Science, a team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London and Macquarie University found that bumblebees could identify objects by shape in the dark if they had seen, but not touched, them in the light, and vice versa, demonstrating a …

A team of physicists in New Zealand has held individual atoms of rubidium in place and observed previously unseen interactions. Laser-cooled atom cloud viewed through microscope camera. Image credit: University of Otago. “Our method involves the individual trapping and cooling of three atoms to a temperature of about a millionth …

  China’s Chang’e-4 lander made history when it completed the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon in January 2019. After the landing, Chang’e-4 deployed the Yutu-2 rover to explore the surface in greater detail. Now, the team has spotted some very unusual rocks scattered around Von …

A new genus and species of hairy cicada that lived around 100 million years ago (Cretaceous period) has been identified from a fossilized wing found in Canada. The fossilized forewing of Maculaferrum blaisi; total forewing length estimated at 20-23 mm, maximal forewing width at 7.5 mm. Image credit: Demers-Potvin et …

A team of professional and citizen scientists has discovered a new species of caenogastropod snail living in tropical lowland rainforests of Borneo and named it after climate activist Greta Thunberg. An individual of Craspedotropis gretathunbergae. Image credit: Pierre Escoubas. “The newly-described snail belongs to the so-called caenogastropods, a group of …

In a new study published today in the journal Communications Biology, an international team of researchers radiocarbon-dated an exceptionally well-preserved carcass of an ancient bird found in the Siberian permafrost and identified the species through reconstruction of its mitogenome. Horned larks (Eremophila alpestris). Permafrost deposits containing both animal and plant …