Science

Wild bats have been shown to have high cognitive abilities previously attributed only to humans

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Bat. Credit: Yuval Barkai Researchers from Tel Aviv University have been tracking free-ranging Egyptian bats from a colony based in TAU’s I. Meier Segals Garden for Zoological Research to answer a long-standing scientific question: Do animals have high and complex cognitive abilities previously attributed only to humans? In particular, the study focused on the characteristics … Read more

Experts believe NASA’s asteroid sample could have come from a small ocean world

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NASA’s first asteroid sample is the most pristine sample of its kind. Now, back on Earth, the sample from the asteroid Bennu has already yielded surprising discoveries about the early solar system and the asteroid’s possible origins. After a seven-year journey to the asteroid Bennu and back, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft last year returned a sample … Read more

Layers of carbonate provide insight into the world of the ancient Romans

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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

The world’s most accurate and precise atomic clock pushes boundaries in physics

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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

CERN ATLAS experiment releases 65 TB of open data for research

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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

The evidence is mounting: humans were responsible for the extinction of large mammals

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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

A desert moss that has the potential to grow on Mars

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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

‘Motion-picture’ method reveals shape of Milky Way’s dark matter halo

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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

Research shows that Darwin and Wallace are both right about the evolution of butterflies

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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

Sixty-million-year-old grape seeds reveal how the death of the dinosaurs paved the way for the spread of grapes

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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