Showing 20 articles starting at article 481

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology, Space: Structures and Features

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Galaxies from the early Universe are more like our own Milky Way than previously thought, flipping the entire narrative of how scientists think about structure formation in the Universe, according to new research.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Palaeontologists have discovered X-ray evidence of proteins in fossil feathers that sheds new light on feather evolution.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Newly developed ultra-low radiation cables reduce background noise for neutrino and dark matter detectors.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An international study has documented post-mortem bone modifications not linked to consumption.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Half a million years ago, earlier than was previously thought possible, humans were building structures made of wood, according to new research.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

An international research team has used the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to observe the most distant galaxy protocluster to date, 13.14 billion light-years away. The team has successfully captured the 'core region' of the galaxy protocluster, which corresponds to a metropolitan area with a particularly high number density of galaxies. The team has revealed that many galaxies are concentrated in a small area and that the growth of galaxies is accelerated. Furthermore, the team used simulations to predict the future of the metropolitan area and found that the region will merge into one larger galaxy within tens of millions of years. These results are expected to provide important clues regarding the birth and growth of galaxies.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A groundbreaking study is reshaping our understanding of crocodile evolution by pinpointing the onset of slow growth rates to the Late Triassic period, much earlier than the previously assumed Early Jurassic timeline. The research highlights newly discovered fossil crocodile ancestors (known as crocodylomorphs) that exhibited slow growth rates, similar to modern-day crocodilians. Intriguingly, these early crocodylomorphs were not the lethargic, semi-aquatic creatures we are familiar with today; they were small, active, and fully terrestrial. The study also suggests that this slow-growth strategy was not a mere evolutionary quirk but a survival mechanism, as only the slow-growing crocodylomorphs managed to survive the End-Triassic mass extinction. This stands in stark contrast to the fast-growing dinosaurs of the same era, setting the stage for the divergent evolutionary paths that would later define their modern descendants.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

While previous researchers have hypothesized that black holes eat slowly, new simulations indicate that black holes scarf food much faster than conventional understanding suggests. Some quasars brighten and disappear within months -- a time scale that aligns with the new findings.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

X-rays of an ancient jawless fish shows earliest-known example of internal cartilage skull, unlike that of any other known vertebrate.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Life on a faraway planet -- if it's out there -- might not look anything like life on Earth. But there are only so many chemical ingredients in the universe's pantry, and only so many ways to mix them. Scientists have now exploited those limitations to write a cookbook of hundreds of chemical recipes with the potential to give rise to life. Their ingredient list could focus the search for life elsewhere in the universe by pointing out the most likely conditions -- planetary versions of mixing techniques, oven temperatures and baking times -- for the recipes to come together.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study shows the isolation and sequencing of more than a century-old RNA molecules from a Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in a museum collection. This resulted in the reconstruction of skin and skeletal muscle transcriptomes from an extinct species for the first time. The researchers note that their findings have relevant implications for international efforts to resurrect extinct species, including both the Tasmanian tiger and the woolly mammoth, as well as for studying pandemic RNA viruses.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research is challenging the scientific status quo on the limits of the nuclear chart in hot stellar environments where temperatures reach billions of degrees Celsius.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey to change the way we think about the universe and its distant galaxies. Astronomers authored a paper confirming very bright galaxies in the early universe, while also disproving the identification of what would have been the most distant galaxy ever found.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. This image of HH 211 from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar, an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and with a mass only 8% of the present-day Sun (it will eventually grow into a star like the Sun).

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Planetary scientists have discovered that high energy electrons in Earth's plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes on the Moon's surface and, importantly, the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar surface.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

One of the most interesting and important questions in cosmology is, 'How much matter exists in the universe?' An international team has now succeeded in measuring the total amount of matter for the second time. The team determined that matter makes up 31% of the total amount of matter and energy in the universe, with the remainder consisting of dark energy.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

These new detections suggest polar ring galaxies might be more common than previously believed.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

At the center of every galaxy is a supermassive black hole. Beyond a certain size, these become active, emitting huge amounts of radiation, and are then called quasars. It is thought these are activated by the presence of massive dark matter halos (DMH) surrounding the galaxy, directing matter towards the center, feeding the black hole. A team has now surveyed hundreds of ancient quasars and found this behavior is very consistent throughout history. This is surprising, as many large-scale processes show variation throughout the life of the universe, so the mechanism of quasar activation could have implications for the evolution of the entire universe.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

More than 400 million years ago, an insect-like animal called the springtail developed a small protein that prevents its cells from freezing.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

As the universe evolves, scientists expect large cosmic structures to grow at a certain rate: dense regions such as galaxy clusters would grow denser, while the void of space would grow emptier.