Australia’s oldest angiosperms (flowering plants) are approximately 126 million years old, and they resembled modern magnolias, buttercups and laurels, according to new research published in the Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology. Rocks containing microscopic pollen were collected to determine the age of fossil leaves from Castle Cove, Otway Ranges, Victoria, …
Read More »Researchers Demonstrate Chip-to-Chip Quantum Teleportation
A research team led by University of Bristol scientists has successfully demonstrated quantum teleportation of information between two programmable micrometer-scale silicon chips. The team’s work, published in the journal Nature Physics, lays the groundwork for large-scale integrated photonic quantum technologies for communications and computations. Llewellyn et al realize an array …
Read More »Blue Light is Less Disruptive to Sleep than Previously Thought
Using dim, cooler lights in the evening and warmer lights in the day may be more beneficial to our health, according to a new study in mice from University of Manchester researchers. Changes in the spectral content of ambient light are detectable to most mammals as a blue shift in …
Read More »Astronomers Identify 100 Stars That Went Missing Over Time, for Unknown Reasons
Astronomers are currently wrestling with something of a mystery. In 2016, a team of researchers in Sweden noticed that a star visible in an image from 1950 was no longer visible. Astronomers have started looking at other images from the last century, and they’ve found more missing stars, about …
Read More »305-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shows Parent Caring for Its Offspring
A Carboniferous-period fossil found in Nova Scotia, Canada, shows an ancient creature called a varanopid synapsid (family Varanopidae) caring for its young. An artist’s impression of an adult and a juvenile Dendromaia unamakiensis. Image credit: Henry Sharpe. “Parental care is a behavioral strategy where parents make an investment or divert …
Read More »Scientists Create Molecular Map of Striatum
Striatum, the inner part of the brain, is considered central to decision-making and the development of various addictions. In mouse models and with methods used for mapping cell types and brain tissue, a team of researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden was able to visualize the organization of different …
Read More »Novel Laser Ultrasound Technique Doesn’t Require Contact with Patient’s Body
The noncontact laser ultrasound technique, developed by a team of MIT engineers, leverages an eye- and skin-safe laser system to remotely image the inside of a patient: when trained on a patient’s skin, one laser remotely generates sound waves that bounce through the body; a second laser remotely …
Read More »Paleontologists Uncover Fossilized Remains of Baby Ornithopod Dinosaurs in Australia
Paleontologists have unearthed the 100-million-year-old (Cretaceous period) fossilized bones of perinatal non-iguanodontian ornithopods in the Griman Creek Formation in central-northern New South Wales, Australia. The fossils provide the first evidence of perinatal dinosaurs from Australia and, more broadly, the first insights into the high-latitude breeding preferences of non-iguanodontian ornithopods in …
Read More »365-Million-Year-Old Lungfish Unearthed in South Africa
A new genus and species of lungfish that lived approximately 365 million years ago (Famennian stage of the Late Devonian period) has been identified from fossils found in South Africa. Illustration of Isityumzi mlomomde (lower right) and other Late Devonian freshwater ecosystem creatures including the early tetrapod Unzantsia. Image credit: …
Read More »Boeing Starliner Fails Space Station Test Flight, Ends Up in Wrong Orbit
Today was supposed to be a day of celebration for Boeing — after years of development, the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft was due to make its first trip to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission started smoothly with a textbook launch, but things went wrong when the CST-100 tried …
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