Using data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of Japanese researchers has found that Galactic cosmic rays affect the chemical reactions involved in the formation of nitrogen-bearing organic molecules in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. This view of Titan is among the last images NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sent to Earth before it plunged into…

On February 14, 1990, cameras of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft pointed back toward the Sun and snapped a series of pictures of the Sun, Earth and other planets, making the first ever ‘Family Portrait of the Solar System’ as seen from the outside. One of those images, the picture of Earth, is now known as the ‘Pale Blue Dot.’ For the 30th anniversary of the famous photo, researchers at NASA’s…

Mud wasp nests have helped establish a date for the Gwion Gwion rock art in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. A typical remnant mud wasp nest (A) overlying pigment from a Gwion motif before removal and (B) the remainder with pigment revealed underneath. Image credit: Damien Finch. “The Kimberley region hosts thousands of rock art sites with some earlier depictions in a remarkably good…

In a paper published online in the journal Palaeodiversity, Oregon State University’s Professor George Poinar Jr. described a new family, genus and species of pollen-collecting bee found in a piece of 99-million-year-old amber (mid-Cretaceous period) excavated from a mine in Myanmar. Discoscapa apicula; the bee is carrying four beetle triungulins. Image credit: George Poinar Jr. / College of Science,…

Snorkelers in mangrove forest waters inhabited by the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea xamachana report discomfort due to a sensation known as ‘stinging water.’ When Tohoku University’s Dr. Cheryl Ames and colleagues looked at toxin-filled mucus the jellyfish release into the water, they were surprised to discover gyrating balls of stinging cells — dubbed cassiosomes — inside the…

A team of physicists led by the University of British Columbia has demonstrated a novel way to precisely control electrical currents by leveraging the interaction between an electron’s spin and its orbital rotation around the nucleus. An artist’s impression of the dissolving of the electronic ‘traffic jam:’ the red atoms are different in their quantum nature and allow transport of electrons…

Scientists have long known that immune cells migrate to the site of an infection, which individuals experience as inflammation. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Washington and Northwestern University has uncovered evidence that this gathering is not just a consequence of immune activation; immune cells ‘count’ how many of them have gathered to determine how much the immune system…

Four West African populations — Yoruba, Esan, Mende, and Gambian — derive 2 to 19% of their genetic ancestry from a yet-undiscovered species of archaic hominin that diverged before the split of modern humans and the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans, according to new research from the University of California, Los Angeles. Durvasula & Sankararaman provide complementary lines…

Zealandia — Earth’s seventh continent — experienced dramatic elevation changes between about 50 million and 35 million years ago, according to a new analysis of samples collected during the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 371 in 2017; this topographic upheaval may have been due to a widespread reactivation of ancient faults linked to formation of the western…

A team of physicists led by the University of British Columbia has demonstrated a novel way to precisely control electrical currents by leveraging the interaction between an electron’s spin and its orbital rotation around the nucleus. An artist’s impression of the dissolving of the electronic ‘traffic jam:’ the red atoms are different in their quantum nature and allow transport of electrons…