News
- Astronomy
A fast radio burst’s unlikely source may be a cluster of old stars
The burst’s origin in a globular cluster suggests that not all these enigmatic blasts come from young stellar populations.
- Paleontology
The Age of Dinosaurs may have ended in springtime
Fossilized fish bones suggest that the massive asteroid strike at the end of the Cretaceous Period occurred during the Northern Hemisphere’s spring.
- Genetics
Africa’s oldest human DNA helps unveil an ancient population shift
Long-distance mate seekers started staying closer to home about 20,000 years ago.
- Planetary Science
An ancient impact on Earth led to a cascade of cratering
For the first time, scientists have discovered clusters of craters on Earth that were formed by the impacts of material thrown out of a larger crater.
- Astronomy
A rare collision of dead stars can bring a new one to life
These carbon- and oxygen-covered stars may have formed from an unusual merging of two white dwarfs.
- Paleontology
Fossils show a crocodile ancestor dined on a young dinosaur
The 100-million-year-old fossil of a crocodile ancestor contains the first indisputable evidence that dinosaurs were on the menu.
- Archaeology
The world’s oldest pants stitched together cultures from across Asia
A re-creation of a 3,000-year-old horseman’s trousers helped scientists unravel its complex origins.
- Health & Medicine
An anime convention in November was not an omicron superspreader event
Vaccines, ventilation and other safety measures probably prevented the variant’s spread at Anime NYC, reports suggest.
- Animals
How lizards keep detachable tails from falling off
A hierarchical structure of micropillars and nanopores allows the tail to break away when necessary while preventing it from easily detaching.
- Archaeology
A technique borrowed from ecology hints at hundreds of lost medieval legends
An ecology-based statistical approach may provide a storybook ending for efforts to gauge ancient cultural diversity.
- Oceans
Sunlight helps clean up oil spills in the ocean more than previously thought
Solar radiation dissolved as much as 17 percent of the surface oil slick spilled after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a new study suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Chewing sugar-free gum reduced preterm births in a large study
Among 10,000 women in Malawi, those who chewed xylitol gum daily had fewer preterm births compared with women who didn’t chew the gum.
