Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured an amazing new photo of the interacting galaxy system IC 1623. This Hubble image shows the interacting galaxy system IC 1623. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in the ultraviolet, infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through eight filters. The...
Astronomers using NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite have mapped the boundary of the heliosphere, the vast region of space surrounding the Solar System that is filled with the solar wind. Reisenfeld et al. mapped the heliopause, which is the boundary between the heliosphere (brown) and interstellar space (dark blue). Image credit: NASA / IBEX / Adler Planetarium. The Earth-orbiting...
A new species of the giant rhinoceros genus Paraceratherium has been identified from the fossilized remains found in Gansu Province, northwestern China. Life reconstruction of Paraceratherium linxiaense. Image credit: Yu Chen. The newly-identified rhino species lived during the Oligocene epoch, around 26.5 million years ago. Named Paraceratherium linxiaense, it belongs to Paraceratherium, a small...
African coelacanths (Latimeria chalumnae) reach maturity around the age of 55 and gestate their offspring for 5 years, according to a study published in the journal Current Biology. Latimeria chalumnae off Pumula on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, South Africa, on November 22, 2019. Image credit: Bruce Henderson, doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/7806. Coelacanths are large lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians)...
Physicists from the LHCb Collaboration at CERN have proved that a subatomic particle called the charm meson can switch into its antiparticle and back again. Using data collected during the second run of the Large Hadron Collider, they’ve measured a difference in mass between the particles of 1*10-38 g. The LHCb Collaboration measured the tiny mass difference between the D1 and D2 mesons, which...
Xanthohumol, a prenylated flavonoid produced by hops (Humulus lupulus), and its synthetic derivative, tetrahydroxanthohumol, can mitigate the diet-induced accumulation of fat in the liver known as hepatic steatosis (fatty liver disease), according to new research from Oregon State University. Hops (Humulus lupulus). Image credit: Elisa Klickblick. “Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a...
An international team of scientists has sequenced and assembled the genome of the Basenji dog (Canis lupus familiaris), an ancient dog breed of central African origins that still lives and hunts with tribesmen in Congo. The genome of the Basenji, which sits at the base of the dog breed family tree, makes an excellent unbiased reference for future comparisons between dog breeds and evolutionary analysis...
Reconstructing the emergence and weathering of Earth’s continental crust in the Archean eon is crucial for our understanding of early ocean chemistry, biosphere evolution and the onset of plate tectonics. An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA. Once land becomes established through dynamic processes like plate tectonics, it begins to weather and add crucial...
In a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers, a team of U.S. researchers analyzed the ages of 89 well-dated geological events of the last 260 million years — such as marine and non-marine extinctions, major ocean-anoxic events, sea-level fluctuations — from the recent geologic literature. A study by Rampino et al. suggests that global geologic events are generally correlated,...