Astronomers using the 4-m Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii have detected tiny plasma vortices on the Sun’s surface (photosphere) for the first time, revealing a long-suspected process that could transport energy into the million-degree corona. The highest-resolution image of the Sun’s surface (photosphere) ever captured, taken at 416 nm by the Inouye Solar Telescope; it reveals deformed...

NASA’s Curiosity rover has stumbled on the largest patch of polygon-shaped ground fractures it has ever seen on Mars, a discovery that could reveal more about the planet’s watery past. The polygon fractures discovered by Curiosity in Gale crater, Mars. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS. The unusual terrain lies in a valley known as Valle Grande on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp inside...

Archaeologists in southwestern Germany have unearthed two miniature bird figurines carved from mammoth ivory, among the smallest and most delicate examples of Ice Age art ever found. Two bird figurines found at Hohle Fels Cave in Germany. Image credit: Ralf Ehmann / University of Tübingen / Museum of Prehistory and Ice Age Art. The two ancient figurines, roughly 2 cm (0.8 inches) long and weighing...

Paleontologists have described a new genus of small, bird-like dinosaur that lived in what is now New Mexico approximately 73 million years ago. Life reconstruction of Dinevenator robustus. Image credit: Sergey Krasovskiy. The newly described genus, Dinevenator, belongs to a family of bird-like predatory dinosaurs called Troodontidae. The genus is monospecific, containing only one valid species:...

New research led by University of Lethbridge scientists offers the most detailed look yet at how the dodo (Raphus cucullatus) — the flightless bird driven to extinction by the 1600s — actually perceived its world, suggesting the ‘stupid bird’ had a far more complex sensory life than its reputation implies. The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) by Frederick William Frohawk, 1905. The dodo and...

Using the largest sample yet of particles called beauty mesons, physicists with the CMS Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) refined a decades-old test of the subtle imbalance that let our Universe exist at all. Neutral beauty mesons can turn into their own antimatter opposite and back again. Image credit: Ansar Iqbal / CMS. One of the greatest mysteries in physics is why the Universe...

In a perspective paper published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a team of researchers and health experts calls for a ‘paradigm shift’ in how public health agencies address hypertension, which affects more than 1.28 billion adults worldwide and remains a leading driver of cardiovascular disease. The authors say high blood pressure can be controlled better with a strategy that combines...

Neanderthals vanished roughly 42,000 years ago, but a piece of their biology appears to be quietly at work in some people today, according to a new study led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Aspects of Neanderthal anatomy live on in people today. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum. “Neanderthals are the most well-known among archaic human...

Zircon crystals and impact-altered minerals show that a massive asteroid slammed into what is now the Pilbara region of Western Australia about 3 billion years ago. The North Pole Dome crater: (A) simplified map of the East Pilbara Terrane (EPT, Western Australia), showing Paleoarchean granite domes (pink) and greenstone belts (greens and blues); the North Pole Dome (NPD) lies near the terrane center;...

Neanderthals vanished roughly 42,000 years ago, but a piece of their biology appears to be quietly at work in some people today, according to a new study led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Aspects of Neanderthal anatomy live on in people today. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum. “Neanderthals are the most well-known among archaic human...