Named Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua, the compact pair contains two rapidly feeding supermassive black holes separated by just 18,100 light-years. Their existence so early in cosmic history challenges current models of black hole formation. An artist’s impression of Nāpōwawāʻenakaulua, the oldest compact pair of quasars ever observed. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF /...

Haloferax volcanii, a model halophilic (salt-loving) archaeon, showed growth during a 160-day experiment simulating Martian subsurface brine, according to a paper published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The authors stress the result does not mean life exists on Mars. This SEM micrograph (12,000x magnification) shows Haloferax volcanii after 160 days of anaerobic incubation...

Archaeologists say 46 low-fired shards from Çemka Höyük, a Neolithic site in Türkiye, suggest people were testing clay’s possibilities long before pottery became common. Fragments of clay vessels from Çemka Höyük, Türkiye. Image credit: N. Petrova / E. Kodaş. “Adoption of a new object, style or technology requires its integration within wider cultural, social and temporal spheres,”...

When most people picture a giant rodent, they think of the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), or of the enormous extinct rodents that roamed South America within the last 10 million years. New finds from southern Thailand suggest that rodents were getting big much earlier, and on the other side of the world. Hypothetical reconstruction of Yakamys sirindhornae. Image credit: Yaowalak Chaimanee. “Today,...

Researchers from the National University of Singapore, the University of Naples Federico II and the Haus des Meeres aquarium in Austria have filmed the marine animals escaping through tight openings and found a consistent sequence of moves, one that could inform the design of soft robots. Octopus vulgaris’ three- and four-step strategies to squeeze through a larger hole. Image credit: Xin et al.,...

Physicists with the LHCb Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced today evidence for an extremely rare particle decay that scientists have chased for more than four decades, and their result agrees with the Standard Model of particle physics. The LHCb magnet. Image credit: CERN. “What we found in these latest results is an incredibly rare decay of one of these beauty particles,...

A small new study suggests that eating peanuts changes the fats circulating in the blood in ways linked to a modestly lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Domínguez-López et al. integrated lipidomics data from the ARISTOTLE trial and the population-based EPIC-Potsdam cohort to evaluate the lipidomic impact of peanut consumption and its link to cardiometabolic risk; they identified a lipid signature of...

Humans and chimpanzees share more than 96% of their protein-coding DNA, yet human brains are roughly three times larger and far more complex. New research led by Lund University scientists suggests that part of the explanation may lie in a viral infection that struck chimpanzee ancestors millions of years ago and never reached ours. Gerdes et al. show that LINC00662, a human-specific transcript expressed...

A new analysis by University of South Wales Professor Duncan Pirrie and his colleagues undercuts the leading theory that the 6-ton slab of sandstone came from northeastern Scotland, though the geologists stop short of ruling it out entirely. The Altar Stone lies flat on the ground, sunk into the grass beneath the collapsed upright of the Great Trilithon and its lintel. Image credit: Nick Pearce,...

A small new study suggests that eating peanuts changes the fats circulating in the blood in ways linked to a modestly lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Domínguez-López et al. integrated lipidomics data from the ARISTOTLE trial and the population-based EPIC-Potsdam cohort to evaluate the lipidomic impact of peanut consumption and its link to cardiometabolic risk; they identified a lipid signature of...