Predation of wildlife by domestic cats (Felis catus) presents a threat to biodiversity conservation in some ecological contexts. The proportions of wild prey captured and eaten by domestic cats and thus the contributions of wild prey to cat diets are hard to quantify. In a new study published in the …
Read More »Crystalline Nitriles
Titan, Saturn’s icy moon, is an ideal planetary body to study prebiotic chemistry, origins of life, and the potential habitability of an extraterrestrial environment. It has a nitrogen-based atmosphere, complex organic chemistry fueled by radiation from the Sun and Saturn’s magnetosphere, hydrocarbon lakes, organic dunes on the equator, and seasonal …
Read More »Fasting Can Protect From Infections
Fasting before and during exposure to invasive food-borne bacteria protects mice from developing a full-blown gastrointestinal infection, in part through the actions of the gut microbiome, according to new research led by University of British Columbia scientists. Graef et al. highlight how food intake controls the complex relationship between host, …
Read More »Enceladus Subsurface Ocean
A novel theory proposed by planetary scientists from Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory challenges the current thinking that the saltwater global ocean of Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn, is homogenous. Enceladus’ tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon’s icy interior into space, creating …
Read More »Mammoths Co-Existed
The so-called Mount Holly mammoth (Mammuthus sp.) lived approximately 12,800 years ago in what is now New England, a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States, and potentially overlapped with the first human settlers of the region, according to new research from Dartmouth College. The woolly mammoth (Mammuthus …
Read More »Aquatic Planets
In a study published in the journal Science Advances, a team of European astronomers shows that water can be delivered to a terrestrial planet in the form of ‘pebble snow’ in the early phases of the planet’s growth. An artist’s impression of a water-world exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com. “All our …
Read More »Europa’s Glows In The Dark
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is bombarded by a constant and intense blast of radiation from the gas giant. Different salty compounds on the moon’s surface react differently to the radiation and emit their own unique glimmer. To the naked eye, this glow would look sometimes slightly green, sometimes slightly blue …
Read More »Chondrite Like Asteroids
A type of meteorite called an enstatite chondrite has similar isotopic composition to terrestrial rocks and thus may be representative of the material that formed Earth. A new study published in the journal Science shows that these meteorites contain sufficient hydrogen to have delivered to Earth at least three times …
Read More »Water Rich World
High-resolution observations from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft of mysterious bright spots (faculae) in Occator crater on the dwarf planet Ceres suggest the existence of a brine reservoir — which is about 40 km (25 miles) deep and hundreds of km wide — that emerged to the surface through long-lived cryovolcanic activity …
Read More »Venus Geologically Active
Venus is Still Geologically Active, New Research Suggests A team of researchers from the University of Maryland and the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich has identified 37 active circular volcano-tectonic features called coronae on Venus. Venus in real colors, processed from Mariner 10 images. Image credit: Mattias Malmer / …
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