When you are trying to solve one of the biggest conundrums in cosmology, you should triple check your homework. The puzzle, called the “Hubble Tension,” is that the current rate of the expansion of the universe is faster than what astronomers expect it to be, based on the universe’s initial conditions and our present understanding […]
Amphibian feeds its babies milk-like liquid A legless amphibian, called a caecilian, produces a liquid for its babies that provides lipids and sugars, similar to mammalian milk. Siphonops annulatus babies also eat their mother’s skin once a week, and the team discovered the nutritive fluid after wondering how they could be so active and eat […]
Atomic force microscopy, or AFM, is a widely used technique that can quantitatively map material surfaces in three dimensions, but its accuracy is limited by the size of the microscope’s probe. A new AI technique overcomes this limitation and allows microscopes to resolve material features smaller than the probe’s tip. A new deep learning algorithm […]
Why did humans evolve without tails? Though humans’ ape ancestors have tails, we evolved without them due to a single gene mutation, which was pinpointed through researching the genomes of six ape species and 15 monkey species. Scientists are unsure whether becoming tailless was an evolutionary benefit or a chance mutation, but one theory is […]
A new analysis by the STAR collaboration at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle collider at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, provides the first direct evidence of the imprint left by what may be the universe’s most powerful magnetic fields on “deconfined” nuclear matter . The evidence comes from […]
Dinosaur species may have crossed sea to find Africa Fossils in Morocco reveal a previously unknown duckbill dinosaur species, Minqaria bata, which is anatomically similar enough to duckbill species found in Europe to suggest that the pony-size creatures swam or floated across the Tethys Sea and diversified quickly into at least three species in North […]
Nuclear power is considered one of the ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, but how to deal with nuclear waste products is among the issues surrounding it. Radioactive waste products can be turned into more stable elements, but this process is not yet viable at scale. New research led by physicists from the University […]
Stone Age travel story emerges from DNA of “Vittrup Man” Advanced analysis of DNA, teeth and bones of the bog-preserved body of Denmark’s “Vittrup Man” has revealed the individual’s history as well as possible movements and connections between Stone Age cultures. Vittrup Man’s genetics suggest an origin on the Scandinavian Peninsula, where he likely grew […]
In most materials, heat prefers to scatter. If left alone, a hotspot will gradually fade as it warms its surroundings. But in rare states of matter, heat can behave as a wave, moving back and forth somewhat like a sound wave that bounces from one end of a room to the other. In fact, this […]
Iceland volcano’s magma hits unprecedented speed Magma underneath Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula flows at an “ultra-rapid” 7,400 cubic meters per second, and the same magma river likely caused Thursday’s eruption. The unprecedented speed indicates the role of not only pressure but also tectonic stress and ground fracturing in a volcano’s likelihood to erupt, says Sigrun Hreinsdottir […]