Motions in the Sun, 125,000 Miles Deep, Reveal Inner Workings of Sunspot Cycle
The meridional flow in the Sun’s convection zone forms one gigantic cell in each hemisphere. At a depth of 200 thousand kilometers (the bottom of…
Max Planck Institute
Human Impact on Wildlife Revealed by COVID-19 Lockdown
An international team of scientists is investigating how animals are responding to reduced levels of human activity during the Covid-19 pandemic. In an article published…
Astronomers Stunned by Black Hole With a Puzzling Companion: “An Unexpected and Really Exciting Discovery!”
LIGO and Virgo Find Another Surprising Binary System The harvest of exceptional gravitational-wave events from LIGO’s and Virgo’s third observing run (O3) grows. A new…
Physics Problem Deepens: Astrophysicists Puzzled for Decades Rule Out All Proposed Explanations
Two prominent X-ray emission lines of highly charged iron have puzzled astrophysicists for decades: their measured and calculated brightness ratios always disagree. This hinders good…
“Mirror Image” of the Earth and Sun Discovered 3000 Light-Years Away
The star Kepler-160 and its companion KOI-456.04 are more reminiscent of the Sun-Earth system than any previously known exoplanet-star pair. Among the more than 4,000…
How Many People Actually Have COVID-19? Significant Global Differences in Undetected Cases
According to a study, the number of undetected cases of infected persons differs significantly in different countries. The demographic scaling model developed by researchers at…
Some Precious Metals – Such As Gold and Silver – Lose Their Conductive Property, If They Are Thin Enough
For the first time, it is possible to produce crystalline layers of precious metals that consist of a single atomic layer and which are semiconducting….
International Death Counts Show Peaks of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Weekly death counts for 15 countries are now publicly available in an online database. Weekly death counts can be used to calculate how many more…
Genetic Analysis Reveals the Fascinating Evolutionary Origins of Catmint AKA Catnip
Researchers discover the evolutionary origins of the cat attractant nepetalactone. Catmint, also known as catnip, is well-known for its intoxicating effect on cats. The odor…
DNA of Bones Found in Cave Reveals Major Cultural Transition in Europe Took Place Earlier Than Thought
The Oldest Upper Paleolithic Homo Sapiens in Europe Two studies report new Homo sapiens fossils from the site of Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria. “The Bacho Kiro…
Sun’s Activity Is Extremely Weak Compared to Similar Stars – “We Were Very Surprised”
An analysis of 369 solar-like stars shows that solar brightness variations are extremely weak. The extent to which solar activity (and thus the number of…
The Origin of Feces: Using AI & DNA to Reliably Predict Sources of Ancient Poop
New method of discerning sources of ancient feces makes this archaeological find far more informative. The archaeological record is littered with feces, a potential goldmine…
Hungry Stars Cannibalize Each Other in ‘Be X-Ray’ Systems
Humans have been studying the light from stars since the beginning of our history; however, we’ve only just discovered in the last few decades that…
Cosmic Bombs and Controversy: A New Theory of Magnetar Formation
Magnetars are neutron stars endowed with the strongest magnetic fields observed in the Universe, but their origin remains controversial. In a study published in Science…
Gravitational-Waves and Nuclear Physics Used to Obtain Best Measurement of Neutron Star Size
International team uses a novel approach combining gravitational-wave observations, multi-messenger astronomy, and nuclear physics to obtain the best measurement of neutron star size to date….
Fusion Energy Solution May Come From Permanent Magnets Like Those on Refrigerator Doors – But Far Stronger
Permanent magnets akin to those used on refrigerators could speed the development of fusion energy – the same energy produced by the sun and stars….
Stellar Dynamos: Turbulent Convection at the Heart of Star Activity
By combining modern data analysis techniques with stellar structure modeling for main-sequence and giant stars, researchers shed new light on stellar dynamos. In their interiors,…
Human Populations Survived a Volcanic Super-Eruption 74,000 Years Ago – 5,000 Times Larger Than Mount St. Helen’s
New archaeological work supports the hypothesis that human populations were present in India by 80,000 years ago and that they survived one of the largest…