Fossil Discovery in Patagonia Reveals New Species of Horned Turtle
Ornithologists Describe New Bird Species from Remote Indonesian Islands
Astronomers Finally Find Milky Way’s Missing Black Hole Wind
After Decade-Long Hunt, Scientists Find East Asia’s Tallest Tree
Half-Ton Cattle Relatives Roamed Europe 4 Million Years Ago
New Microraptorine Dinosaur Discovered in China
Using the SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array, a 42-element radio interferometer at Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Hat Creek, California, astronomers probed 3I/ATLAS for artificial radio transmissions but found only human-made interference. This image from the Subaru Telescope shows the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. Image credit: NAOJ. 3I/ATLAS is the third confirmed object from another star...
Planetary scientists analyzing a lunar meteorite known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 12593 have uncovered evidence of an asteroid impact that occurred 3.5 billion years ago on the Moon, helping to reconstruct a period of intense bombardment that left lasting marks across the inner Solar System. XRF map of 7.53 g slice of NWA 12593: calcium (Ca) and iron (Fe) illustrate the location and diversity of clasts;...
New radiocarbon dates from Sala Keimada, a hard-to-reach chamber of Cueva Palomera in the province of Burgos, northern Spain, suggest that generations of people returned to the sacred space from the end of the Ice Age through the Iron Age, leaving behind art, structures and offerings. Sala Keimada, a chamber of Cueva Palomera in Burgos, Spain. Image credit: Ortega-Martínez et al., doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105818. “Cueva...
Fossils from some of the oldest-known animals on Earth, dating from 574 million years ago (Ediacaran period), suggest that cloning, not competition, dominated the Ediacaran seas, slowing evolution until environmental stress helped drive the rise of sexual reproduction and a burst of biodiversity. Artist’s reconstruction of the Fractofusus community: the bottom right features a large Fractofusus...
Along with armadillos and anteaters, sloths are members of Xenarthra, the only clade of placental mammals to have originated in South America. In new research, scientists sequenced and analyzed chromosome-level genomes of the Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) and the southern anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla). They identified unusual genetic elements tied to energy production in the...
Mathematicians from University College London and the University of California, Davis, have published a mathematical proof that the Universe’s accelerating expansion can be explained without dark energy, dealing a serious blow to the Lambda-cold dark matter model — the standard cosmological model that has stood for nearly 30 years. Alexander et al. provide a mathematical proof that instabilities...
In a small randomized trial in the United Kingdom, adults who added a serving of 100% fruit juice or a smoothie to a healthier diet reported lower depression scores after four weeks. People who drink a glass of 100% fruit juice or a smoothie each day as part of the UK’s 5-a-day healthy eating guidance see improvements in their mental wellbeing. Image credit: Joseph Mucira. “While most people...
Along with armadillos and anteaters, sloths are members of Xenarthra, the only clade of placental mammals to have originated in South America. In new research, scientists sequenced and analyzed chromosome-level genomes of the Linnaeus’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus didactylus) and the southern anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla). They identified unusual genetic elements tied to energy production in the...
Planetary scientists analyzing a lunar meteorite known as Northwest Africa (NWA) 12593 have uncovered evidence of an asteroid impact that occurred 3.5 billion years ago on the Moon, helping to reconstruct a period of intense bombardment that left lasting marks across the inner Solar System. XRF map of 7.53 g slice of NWA 12593: calcium (Ca) and iron (Fe) illustrate the location and diversity of clasts;...
Geochemical analysis of 780,000-year-old stone tools from Israel suggests Acheulean (or Acheulian) hominins repeatedly sought specific basalt sources, revealing sophisticated planning and deep knowledge of their landscape. The basalt slabs at the Acheulean site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov in Israel were used for biface production, and most of their knapping took place away from the site. Image credit:...
