Astronomers using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have looked for dust-extinguished supernovae in the nuclear regions of 40 luminous and ultra-luminous infrared galaxies within 200 Mpc (652 million light-years). This image shows galaxy Arp 148, captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope; specially processed Spitzer data is shown inside the white...
Archaeologists say they have found a 65,000-year-old leaf point in a cave in the Swabian Jura, Germany. The 65,000-year-old leaf point from Hohle Fels Cave, Germany. Image credit: University of Tübingen. “This discovery represents the first time a leaf point has been recovered from a modern excavation, allowing us to study the fresh find with state-of-the-art methods,” said Professor Nicholas...
Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of small-sized mesoeucrocodylian from the fossilized remains found in the Patagonian mountains of southern Chile. Burkesuchus mallingrandensis and a group of Chilesaurus diegosuarezi. Image credit: Gabriel L. Lio / de Anatomía Comparada y Evolución de los Vertebrados (LACEV), Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia.’ The...
Giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) exhibit many of the features typical of mammals with complex cooperative social systems and matrilineal societies, according to a review paper published in the journal Mammal Review. A group of giraffes. Image credit: Zoe Muller. Giraffes are the tallest living terrestrial animals, the largest extant ruminants, and conspicuous members of the African fauna. Until...
The new exotic particle discovered by physicists from the LHCb Collaboration at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) contains two quarks and two antiquarks. Labeled Tcc+, it is the longest-lived exotic particle ever discovered and the first to contain two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks. An artist’s impression of Tcc+, a tetraquark composed of two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark....
Baroreceptors — natural blood-pressure barometers inside our bodies — detect subtle changes in blood pressure and adjust hormone levels to keep it in check. Scientists have long suspected that these pressure sensors existed in specialized kidney cells called renin cells, but no one has been able to locate them until now. Watanabe et al. show that the enigmatic baroreceptor is a nuclear...
An analysis of the high-quality nuclear genomes previously published from three Neanderthals and one Denisovan shows that these extinct hominins were polymorphic for ABO blood groups and shared blood group alleles — different versions of the same gene — recurrent in modern sub-Saharan populations. Condemi et al. analyzed the blood types of Neanderthals and Denisovans by looking at their...
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...