View of the ruins of the Barbegal mill complex in 2018. Photo: Robert Fabre Archaeologists face a major challenge when they seek to gather information about buildings or facilities that are left in ruins. This was a particular challenge for the remains of the Roman watermills at Barbegal in southern France, which date back to … Read more
An extremely cold gas of strontium atoms is trapped in a web of light known as an optical lattice. The atoms are held in an ultrahigh vacuum environment, meaning there is almost no air or other gases present. This vacuum helps preserve the atoms’ delicate quantum states, which are fragile. The red dot you see … Read more
Open Data at the ATLAS Experiment. Credit: ATLAS Collaboration/CERN The ATLAS Experiment at CERN has made two years of scientific data available to the public for research purposes. The data include recordings of proton-proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at a collision energy of 13 TeV. This is the first time ATLAS has … Read more
Prehistoric humans hunt a woolly mammoth. Mounting evidence suggests that this species, and at least 46 other megaherbivores, were driven to extinction by humans. Credit: Engraving by Ernest Grise, photographed by William Henry Jackson. Getty’s Open Content Program The debate has raged for decades: was it humans or climate change that caused many species of … Read more
Phenotypic changes and physiological responses of S. caninervis plants during DR process. Credit: The innovation (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.xinn.2024.100657 The desert moss Syntrichia caninervis is a promising candidate for colonization on Mars thanks to its extreme ability to endure harsh conditions that are lethal to most life forms. The moss is known for its ability to … Read more
In this artist’s impression, the galactic disk warp “dances gracefully” under the torsion of the dark matter halo. Credit: Hou Kaiyuan and Dong Zhanxun of the School of Design, Shanghai Jiao Tong University An international team has developed a “motion-picture” method to measure the precession rate of the Milky Way’s disk curvature. Using a sample … Read more
Birdwing butterflies of the Troides haliphron species group, with females (right) being noticeably more diverse than males (left). Credit: Natural History Museum. 2024. Birdwing butterflies (from collection specimens). Licensed under CC-BY-4.0. Groundbreaking AI research on butterflies has explored the understudied evolution of females and adds to the debate among evolution’s founding fathers. The University of … Read more
Lithouva – the earliest fossil grape from the Western Hemisphere, ~60 million years old from Colombia. Top image shows fossil accompanied by CT scan reconstruction. Bottom image shows artist’s reconstruction. Credit: Fabiany Herrera, art by Pollyanna von Knorring. If you’ve ever consumed raisins or enjoyed a glass of wine, you may have partly to thank … Read more
Artist’s impression of decorated, custom-made clothing in the Upper Paleolithic. Credit: Mariana Ariza A team of researchers led by an archaeologist from the University of Sydney is the first to suggest that eye needles are a new technological innovation used to decorate clothing for social and cultural purposes. This marks the major shift from clothing … Read more
Concept of angular ptychographic imaging with closed-form method (APIC) and comparison between the reconstruction process of APIC and Fourier ptychographic microscopy (FPM). Credit: Nature communication (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49126-y For hundreds of years, the brightness and magnification of microscopes were ultimately limited by the physical properties of their optical lenses. Microscope makers pushed those limits by … Read more