News

  1. Animals

    DNA has revealed the origin of this giant ‘mystery’ gecko

    A genetic analysis of a 19th century museum specimen, the only known example of the planet’s biggest gecko, has rewritten the animal’s backstory.

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  2. Life

    New fossils from Patagonia may rewrite the history of duck-billed dinosaurs

    New findings are adding a wrinkle to researchers’ understanding of how duck-billed dinosaurs conquered the Cretaceous world.

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  3. Physics

    Physicists split bits of sound using quantum mechanics

    New experiments put phonons — the tiniest bits of sound — into quantum mechanical superpositions and show they are as weird as other quantum entities.

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  4. Climate

    Why is the North Atlantic breaking heat records?

    Record-breaking sea-surface temperatures off the coast of Africa may affect the 2023 hurricane season. What’s fueling the unusual heat is unclear.

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  5. Astronomy

    A supermassive black hole orbiting a bigger one revealed itself with a flash

    A supermassive black hole binary system has puzzled astronomers for decades. Now they’ve finally seen direct signals from the smaller of the two.

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  6. Chemistry

    One photon is all it takes to kick off photosynthesis

    A single particle of light is the spark that begins the process of turning light to chemical energy in photosynthetic bacteria, a new study confirms.

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  7. Astronomy

    Jupiter-sized planets are very rare around the least massive stars

    A six-year search of 200 nearby low-mass red dwarf stars found no Jupiter-like planets, boosting the standard theory for how such planets form.

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  8. Animals

    Camouflaging wheat with a wheat smell could be a new approach to pest control

    Wheat fields coated in wheat germ oil confuse the noses of mice, reducing seed loss by more than 60 percent, a new study finds.

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  9. Animals

    Bowhead whales may have a cancer-defying superpower: DNA repair

    Bowhead whale cells repair damaged DNA exceptionally well, an ability that could prevent cancer and help the marine mammals live for centuries

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  10. Space

    A cyclone has been spotted swirling over Uranus’ north pole for the first time

    Voyager 2 hinted at a cyclone at Uranus’ south pole. Now Earth-based observations give the first direct evidence of a storm at the ice giant’s north pole.

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  11. Archaeology

    An old perfume bottle reveals what some ancient Romans smelled like

    Chemical analyses reveal that an unopened flask of perfume from 2,000 years ago contained patchouli, a common ingredient in modern perfumes.

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  12. Climate

    Wildfire smoke is blanketing the U.S. East Coast. It won’t be the last time

    Climate change will continue to exacerbate fire risk across the world’s boreal forests, making events like the dangerous smoke over the U.S. East Coast more common.

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