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A Rocky Planet in This Oddball Solar System Would Have Stunning Skies

(Credit: Teo Mocnik)

Over the past couple of decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of alien planets and solar systems. These worlds come in a wide variety of arrangements, many of which are quite different from what we see in our own solar system.

Some have giant planets that swing through the planetary systems in stretched-out, or “eccentric,” elliptical orbits, unlike the nearly circular orbits of planets like Jupiter and Saturn.

Astronomers think that many of these e …

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DNA Analysis of Ancient Rome Reveals a Cosmopolitan Megacity

(Credit: leoks/Shutterstock)

A new collection of DNA from ancient Romans spanning 12,000 years shows how the population of the empire’s capital shifted along with its politics. Published in Science, the timeline is one of the first to examine what genetic information from archaeological digs says about the region after the time of hunter-gatherers and early farmers.

The analysis found that ancient Romans were from all over Europe, the Near East and northern Africa. “Rome was a cosmop …

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‘Super-Emitters’ In California Release A Third Of The State’s Methane

A landfill in Italy with a methane capture system. (Credit: newphotoservice/Shutterstock)

A new analysis finds that 0.2 percent of all California methane emitters — individual pipes emitting or leaking the greenhouse gas — account for more than a third of the state’s methane production.

Nearly half of these methane sources, dubbed super-emitters, come from landfills. Dairies and the oil and gas industry account for a quarter of discharge sites each. Ideally, pinpointing these  …

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Modern Apartments Have More Fungi Than a Jungle Hut

Rural residences have less bacteria and fungi than their urban counterparts. (Credit: Elise Lefran/Shutterstock)

Moving to the city might mean gaining some unexpected roommates. New research finds that urban dwellings host more fungi and bacteria than their rural counterparts. This is despite the fact that city homes use more cleaning and antifungal products.

The finding, published yesterday in Nature Microbiology, could provide clues about why urban residents have higher rates of health  …

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No, Houseplants Won’t Purify the Air in Your Home

Your houseplants look nice, and they might even make you happier, but they’re unlikely to clean the air. (Credit: Anatolii Mikhailov/Shutterstock)

If you go for a walk in the forest, the air feels fresh. People often attribute that to trees’ and plants’ air-purifying abilities. They suck up C02 and exhale oxygen, removing pollutants from the air. So it seems the same should go for the air inside our houses as well.

Humans have tried to bring the forest to their homes for decades, installi …

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A New Robotic Instrument Will Map Millions of Galaxies and Reveal Dark Energy’s History

Kitt Peak National Observatory, home to the new Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. (Credit: NOAOAURA/NSF)

A powerful new astronomical instrument got its first view of the sky from an Arizona mountaintop two weeks ago. Once the device officially gets to work in early 2020, it will capture the light from thousands of galaxies each night — up to 5,000 galaxies every 20 minutes, in ideal conditions. With this instrument, researchers will make a deep-space map of where galaxies lie to study  …

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Hubble Catches One Galaxy Floating in a Cosmic City

(Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Bellini et al.)

The universe is vast, with galaxies containing gas, dust, stars, and planets sprinkled throughout. But this sprinkling isn’t random; although some galaxies are indeed truly alone, most are not congregating through gravity.

NGC 1706, captured in this stunning Hubble Space Telescope image, is one of about 50 galaxies bound together in a group that lies in the direction of the southern constellation Dorado the Swordfish. The brilliant, face-o …

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SpaceX, Boeing Complete Crucial Tests for Crew Capsules

Boeing’s Starliner performing the abort pad test on November 4. (Credit: NASA)

Boeing and SpaceX, both leaders in the aerospace industry, have completed crucial tests of their crew capsules, which the companies hope will bring American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the near future.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner completed a pad abort test on November 4. The test is intended to verify astronauts can get away from the launch site if there’s an emergency pr …

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To Help Fidgety Kids, Researchers Made a Brain Scanner That Fits in a Bike Helmet

A young child wearing the MEG scanner, created using a modified bike helmet and several sensors. Credit: Rebeccah Slater, University of Oxford

A simple bike helmet may be the answer for researchers looking to study the brains of fidgety kids. With a few extra holes drilled in the top and a pile of chunky cables ballooning outward, the common piece of headgear could offer an alternative to stationary brain scans.

With a few tweaks, researchers from the U.K. equipped a commercial bike helme …

THE CRUX

Voracious and Invasive Lionfish Are Tearing Through Florida’s Coral Reefs

A young lionfish photographed during a dive in Palm Beach, Florida. (Credit: Steven Kovacs)

Descending into pitch-black open ocean under the cover of inky skies can unnerve even experienced divers, but for underwater photographer Steven Kovacs, it’s a surprisingly addictive activity. “It’s like a treasure hunt. You never know what amazing creature will drift by or come up from the depths.”

While Kovacs has documented the strange and beautiful larval forms of many species during s …