A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the coma of comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) and its dusty output. This image of comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was taken by Hubble on August 8, 2020. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Pagan, STScI / Q. Zhang, Caltech. C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) is the brightest comet visible from the northern hemisphere since 1997’s Hale-Bopp comet. The comet was discovered…

Planetary researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center have used dry paleolakes and riverbeds to determine how much precipitation was present on Mars 3.5-4 billion years ago. Open and closed lakes on early Mars. Image credit: University of Texas at Austin. The climate of the ancient Mars is something of an enigma to scientists. To geologists, the existence…

An international team of archaeologists reports the discovery of grass bedding used to create comfortable areas for sleeping and working by Paleolithic humans who lived in South Africa’s Border Cave at least 200,000 years ago. Vertical field section of 43,000-year-old bedding grass from Border Cave, South Africa. Scale bar – 10 mm. Image credit: Wadley et al, doi: 10.1126/science.abc7239. Border…

A team of paleontologists and mechanical and biomedical engineers has compared CT scans of the fossilized bones of hadrosaurs and other dinosaurs with bones of extinct and living mammals and found that the dinosaur trabecular bone architecture was uniquely capable of supporting large weights (up to 47,000 kg) and different than that of mammals and birds. Life reconstruction of Kamuysaurus japonicus,…

A team of researchers from the United States and the Republic of Djibouti has rediscovered the elusive Somali sengi (‘Elephantulus’ revoilii) over 50 years after it was last recorded. While this species, also known as the Somali elephant-shrew, is historically documented as endemic to Somalia, the new records are from the neighboring Republic of Djibouti and thus expand the species’ known range…

An international team of physicists has studied the controlled interaction of two spatially separated time crystals. Experimental set-up. Quartz-glass sample container cylinder is filled partially with superfluid 3He-B, leaving a free surface of the superfluid approximately 3 mm above the centre of the surrounding coil system. The space above the free surface is vacuum due to the vanishing vapor…

Honey is more effective and less harmful than usual care for improving symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections, particularly cough frequency and cough severity, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of previous studies, published in the journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. Honey is more effective than usual care alternatives and avoids causing harm through antimicrobial resistance….

In a new study, an international team of scientists used 22 newly-sequenced genomes from 18 extant species of penguins to reconstruct the history of their diversification and adaptation. The authors found that ancient penguins diverged in the early Miocene epoch in Australia and New Zealand and identified the emperor and king penguins, the two largest species, as the sister group to all other extant…

An international team of geologists has found the first direct evidence that volcanic eruptions in the southern part of the Siberian Traps region 252 million years ago burned large volumes of coal and vegetation. Elkins-Tanton et al demonstrate that the volume and composition of organic matter interacting with magmas in the Siberian Traps region may explain the global carbon isotope signal and may…

Face pareidolia is the phenomenon of seeing face-like structures in everyday objects. It is a very human condition that relates to how our brains are wired. According to new research published in the journal Psychological Science, we process ‘pareidolia faces’ using the same visual mechanisms of the brain that we do for real ones. NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter photographed the Cydonia region in the…