Bacteria With A Metal Diet Discovered In Dirty Glassware
Newfound bacteria that oxidize manganese help explain the geochemistry of groundwater. The finding ends a century-long search for microbes that live on manganese.
Strange & Offbeat News
Quantum Physics Provides A Way To Hide Ignorance
Students can hide their ignorance and answer questions correctly in an exam without their lack of knowledge being detected by teachers — but only in the quantum world.
Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby Red Dwarf
The nearest exoplanets to us provide the best opportunities for study, including searching for evidence of life outside the Solar System. Astronomers have now detected a system of super-Earth planets orbiting the nearby star Gliese 887, the brightest red dwarf star in the sky. The newly discovered super-Earths lie close to the red dwarf’s habitable zone, where water can exist in liquid form.
Bizarre Saber-Tooth Predator From South America Was No Saber-Tooth Cat
A new study has shown that not all saber-tooths were fearsome predators.
Monster Black Hole Found in the Early Universe (VIDEO)
Astronomers have discovered the second-most distant quasar ever found. It is the first quasar to receive an indigenous Hawaiian name, Poniua’ena. Data show the supermassive black hole powering Poniua’ena is surprisingly massive, challenging current theories of how supermassive black holes formed and grew in the young universe.
ATLAS Telescope Discovers First-Of-Its-Kind Asteroid
An extraordinary asteroid with comet-like features has researchers puzzled.
What Is An Individual? Information Theory May Provide The Answer
Despite the near-universal assumption of individuality in biology, there is little agreement about what individuals are and few rigorous quantitative methods for their identification. A new approach may solve the problem by defining individuals in terms of informational processes.
New Feathered Dinosaur Was One Of The Last Surviving Raptors
Dineobellator notohesperus lived 67 million years ago.
‘Little Foot’ Skull Reveals How This Human Ancestor Lived More Than 3 Million Years Ago
Micro-CT scanning of “Little Foot” skull reveals new aspects of the life of this more than 3-million year-old-human ancestor.
Soldier Ants Reveal That Evolution Can Go In Reverse
Turtle ant soldiers and their oddly-shaped heads suggest that evolution is not always a one-way street toward increasing specialization.
Exoplanet Where It Rains Iron Discovered
Researchers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed an extreme planet where they suspect it rains iron. The ultra-hot giant exoplanet has a day side where temperatures climb above 2400 degrees Celsius, high enough to vaporise metals. Strong winds carry iron vapour to the cooler night side where it condenses into iron droplets.
Ancient shell shows days were half-hour shorter 70 million years ago
Earth turned faster at the end of the time of the dinosaurs than it does today, rotating 372 times a year, compared to the current 365, according to a new study of fossil mollusk shells from the late Cretaceous. The new measurement informs models of how the Moon formed and how close to Earth it has been over the 4.5-billion-year history of the Earth-Moon gravitational dance.
Breathtaking Photo Captures Aftermath of Stellar Collision (PHOTOS)
Astronomers have captured a truly incredible image of two stars locked in a fight to the death, producing a stunning, if violent, cosmic masterpiece in the process.
One of the brightest explosions ever seen was actually a giant star EATING its neighbor
The record-setting stellar explosion SN 2006gy was 50 billion times brighter than our sun, with a blast so energetic it baffled the scientific community. Now scientists think they have uncovered what made it so incredibly bright.
The core of massive dying galaxies already formed 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang
The most distant dying galaxy discovered so far, more massive than our Milky Way — with more than a trillion stars — has revealed that the ‘cores’ of these systems had formed already 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, about 1 billion years earlier than previous measurements revealed.