Science

Pluto’s famous heart-shaped structure, named Tombaugh Regio, controls winds in the atmosphere of the dwarf planet and may give rise to features on its surface, according to a study led by NASA’s Ames Research Center. Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the new work confirms that despite a …

An international team of archaeologists has unearthed a Neolithic water well made of oak trees at the northern border of the town of Ostrov in the Czech Republic. The 7,300-year-old water well near Ostrov, the Czech Republic. Image credit: Archaeological Centre in Olomouc. “Today, over 40 Neolithic water wells are …

A cache of gold dinars dating to the 9th century CE has been unearthed by a team of archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). 1,100-year-old gold dinars from the early Abbasid period found inside a juglet in Yavne, Israel. Image credit: Liat Nadav-Ziv, Israel Antiquities Authority. The hoard, which …

A video recorded underwater by marine biologists shows a gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) clapping in the wild, producing a gunshot-like ‘crack.’ “The discovery of ‘clapping seals’ might not seem that surprising, after all, they’re famous for clapping in zoos and aquaria,” said Dr. David Hocking, a researcher in the School …

New observations from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe show how Sun’s plasma that is released after a solar flare can accelerate and pile up solar energetic particles generating dangerous radiation conditions. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. “We’re getting some of the earliest observations …

  NASA’s Parker solar probe started its journey by setting a record — the fastest rocket launch in history. It’s gone on to set several other records as it studied the sun in unprecedented detail. NASA now reports that Parker has broken two of its own records during its latest …

A team of researchers from the University of Manchester, the University of Geneva, and the EPFL has synthesized new antiviral materials that proved to be active against a large number of viruses, including herpes simplex virus, respiratory syncytial virus, dengue virus, and Zika virus. Made from cyclodextrins, naturally occurring derivatives …

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft has detected sporadic ‘layers’ and ‘rifts’ in the ionosphere — the electrically charged part of the upper atmosphere — of Mars. Graphic illustrating NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft encountering plasma layers at Mars. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / CI lab. If …

  General relativity makes numerous predictions about gravity, time, and the very nature of the universe. So far, all the predictions we’ve been able to test have held up to scrutiny, but the effects are usually subtle and difficult to visualize. Astronomers have spotted a distant star that further confirms …

A team of U.S. researchers has found ancient viruses and bacteria in ice from two cores drilled on the summit and plateau of the Guliya ice cap in northwestern Tibetan Plateau, China. Ohio State University researchers cut an ice core retrieved from the Guliya ice cap in the Kunlun Mountains …