Modern humans have been interbreeding with Neanderthals for more than 200,000 years, an international team led by Josh Akey of Princeton University and Liming Li of Southeast University reports. Akey and Li identified an initial wave of contact around 200-250,000 years ago, another wave 100-120,000 years ago, and the largest one around 50-60,000 years ago. … Read more
SAINT GEORGE – July marks the beginning of a spectacular display in the skies over southern Utah, where clear skies and a waning gibbous moon set the stage for planetary encounters, astronomical flights into the gas giant, and the start of one of the year’s richest meteor showers. Stock photo of meteor shower for illustration … Read more
SALT LAKE CITY — In a galaxy that spans many light-years and is more than 13 billion years old, it stands to reason that major astronomical discoveries are rare, to say the least. Omega Centauri, a global cluster of millions of stars, is nestled in the Milky Way. The stars are so close to the … Read more
It has produced one of the most consistent sets of negative results in the history of science. For over 60 years, researchers have been trying to find a single compelling piece of evidence to support the idea that we share the universe with other intelligent beings. Despite these decades of effort, they have not been … Read more
Time travel, widely recognized as a staple of science fiction stories and movies, is at least theoretically possible under certain conditions. These include situations such as extremely fast space travel, and the traveler’s proximity to particularly strong gravitational sources. However, new research suggests that scientists may be getting closer to making the manipulation of time … Read more
A rumble, a deluge of snow, and then silence — avalanches can be deadly, but they often leave little lasting evidence of their passage. Now, researchers have turned to tree rings to reconstruct records of past avalanches. By analyzing the wood of hundreds of living pine trees near a ski resort in Bulgaria, a team … Read more
A schematic overview of the formose reservoir computer. Credit: Nature (2024). DOI file: 10.1038/s41586-024-07567-x Researchers from the Institute for Molecules and Materials at Radboud University have shown that a complex self-organizing chemical reaction network can perform various computational tasks, such as nonlinear classification and complex dynamical predictions. The field of molecular computing interests researchers who … Read more
We consider galaxies to be old. Our own galaxy, the Milky WayFormed 13.6 billion years ago, and the James Webb Space Telescope has allowed us to look back at some of the first galaxies in the early universe. But are galaxies still being born today? It’s a fun question to tackle because it gives us … Read more
A 150-million-year-old fossil of a stegosaurus specimen is on display at Sotheby’s in New York. The fossil, named “Apex” by the paleontologist who discovered it, is expected to fetch $4 million to $6 million at auction, making it one of the most expensive fossils ever sold. Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images hide caption switch caption … Read more
In 2020, a viral video of an unusual interaction between a badger and a coyote captivated the internet. Filmed by a camera with a remote sensor in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, the images showed the two animals into a culvert to pass under a highway. With a wagging tail, the coyote ran toward the badger … Read more