Ancient Supernovae Prompted Human Ancestors to Walk Upright
Did ancient supernovae induce proto-humans to walk on two legs, eventually resulting in homo sapiens with hands free to build cathedrals, design rockets and snap…
Unique Experiments Will Study Cosmic Clashes and Their Mysterious Aftermath
What happens when two supermassive black holes collide? Combining the observing power of two future ESA missions, Athena and LISA, would allow us to study…
Scientists Gain Better Understanding of Exotic Matter in Sun’s Atmosphere
Scientists from Ireland and France today announced a major new finding about how matter behaves in the extreme conditions of the Sun’s atmosphere. The scientists…
‘Protein Coat’ Makes Viruses More Infectious, Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease
New research from Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet shows that viruses interact with proteins in the biological fluids of their host which results in a…
Hubble Image of the Week – Bucking the Trend
This luminous orb is the galaxy NGC 4621, better known as Messier 59. As this latter moniker indicates, the galaxy was listed in the famous…
Astronomers Discover 18 Earth-Sized Planets Beyond Our Solar System
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), the Georg August University of Göttingen, and the Sonneberg Observatory have discovered 18 Earth-sized…
Harvard Scientist Connects the Dots in Fin-to-Limb Evolution
About 400 million years ago, vertebrates first began to crawl from the primordial seas onto land. Last week, thanks to a cutting-edge mathematical-analysis technique, a…
Strange Martian Mineral Deposit Likely From Volcanic Ash
Ashfall from ancient volcanic explosions is the likely source of a strange mineral deposit near the landing site for NASA’s next Mars rover, a new…
Comet Discovery Reopens Debate About The Origin of Earth’s Water
Where did the Earth’s water come from? Although comets, with their icy nuclei, seem like ideal candidates, analyses have so far shown that their water…
Scientists Believe Pluto May Have a Hidden Subsurface Ocean
Computer simulations provide compelling evidence that an insulating layer of gas hydrates could keep a subsurface ocean from freezing beneath Pluto’s icy exterior, according to…
Juno Discovers Changes in Jupiter’s Magnetic Field
NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter made the first definitive detection beyond our world of an internal magnetic field that changes over time, a phenomenon called…
Electron Beam Manipulates Atoms One at a Time
The ultimate degree of control for engineering would be the ability to create and manipulate materials at the most basic level, fabricating devices atom by…
Chandra Discovers New Signal for Neutron Star Collision
A neutron star merger without an observed gamma-ray burst has been discovered using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result gives astronomers another way to track…
Artificial Intelligence Accelerates Development of Limitless Fusion Energy
Artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science that is transforming scientific inquiry and industry, could now speed the development of safe, clean and virtually…
Hubble Reveals Galaxy Blazing With New Stars Born From Close Encounter
The irregular galaxy NGC 4485 shows all the signs of having been involved in a hit-and-run accident with a bypassing galaxy. Rather than destroying the…
Scientists Reveal Massive Collision in the Milky Way’s Past
Our Milky Way galaxy has probably collided or otherwise interacted with other galaxies during its lifetime; such interactions are common cosmic occurrences. Astronomers can deduce…
Study Reveals What Drives Social Bond Between Offspring and Caregivers
What drives the social bond between offspring and caregivers in the first few days of life? A Yale-led team of researchers has found clues in…
NASA Publishes First Kuiper Belt Flyby Science Results
NASA’s New Horizons mission team has published the first profile of the farthest world ever explored, a planetary building block and Kuiper Belt object called…