The newly-discovered star, SDSS J0715-7334, formed in the halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud and migrated to our Milky Way Galaxy billions of years ago, according to a group of undergraduate students at University of Chicago. The Milky Way Galaxy with the position of SDSS J0715-7334 marked with a star symbol; the solid red line shows the path the star has taken through our Galaxy; the dashed blue...

New computational simulations suggest ice-giant planets like Uranus and Neptune harbor a quasi-one-dimensional superionic state of carbon hydride that could reshape how scientists understand planetary interiors. Illustration of the predicted hexagonal carbon hydride compound under Neptune-like interior conditions. In this structure, carbon forms the outer spiral chains (yellow) and hydrogen forms...

Excavations at the archaeological site of Didé West 1 in eastern Senegal have uncovered an exceptionally well-preserved iron-smelting workshop dated between the 4th century BCE and the 4th century CE, representing nearly eight centuries of activity. A pile of tuyères at the site of Didé West 1 in Senegal. Image credit: Anne Mayor. In Europe, the Iron Age is generally dated from around 800 BCE...

Deep inside a limestone cave in western Cuba, paleontologists have found the most complete ichthyosaur skeleton yet found on the island. Ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaurs. Image credit: Dmitry Bogdanov / CC BY 3.0. The ichthyosaur skeleton was discovered in 2023 in a fluvial cave in El Cuajaní, within the Viñales Geopark and National Park in western Cuba. The exposed segment of the skeleton includes...

Researchers who analyzed dozens of spontaneous performances by a captive male chimpanzee named Ayumu say the animal’s steady rhythms and expressive ‘play face’ hint at how early humans may have transformed vocal emotion into instrumental sound. Ayumu the chimpanzee spontaneously produced long, multicomponent instrumental displays by drumming, dragging, and throwing self-detached objects. Transition...

New computational simulations suggest ice-giant planets like Uranus and Neptune harbor a quasi-one-dimensional superionic state of carbon hydride that could reshape how scientists understand planetary interiors. Illustration of the predicted hexagonal carbon hydride compound under Neptune-like interior conditions. In this structure, carbon forms the outer spiral chains (yellow) and hydrogen forms...

In new research, University of Galway’s Dr. Martin David Mulligan and his colleagues followed nearly 800 participants from the Framingham Heart Study for more than a decade and a half, examining whether vitamin D levels measured in their 30s were linked to changes in the brain in later life. They found that individuals with higher circulating levels of vitamin D had lower accumulations of tau —...

Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from 216 canid remains, including 181 from Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. The oldest data that they recovered are from a 14,200-year-old dog from the Kesslerloch site in Switzerland. Their results suggest that domesticated dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) predate farming and share deep ancestry with wolves (Canis lupus) from Eurasia, challenging ideas about...

By tracing magnetic signals preserved in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia, geoscientists have found the oldest direct evidence yet that parts of the planet’s outer shell were shifting across the globe, pushing the origins of plate motion deep into Earth’s early history. Hadean Earth. Image credit: Alec Brenner. “There has been a huge range of ages suggested for timing,” said...

New computational simulations suggest ice-giant planets like Uranus and Neptune harbor a quasi-one-dimensional superionic state of carbon hydride that could reshape how scientists understand planetary interiors. Illustration of the predicted hexagonal carbon hydride compound under Neptune-like interior conditions. In this structure, carbon forms the outer spiral chains (yellow) and hydrogen forms...