Showing 20 articles starting at article 561
< Previous 20 articles Next 20 articles >
Categories: Mathematics: Modeling, Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology
Published True giant wombat gives Diprotodon podium a wobble


While the Diprotodon -- the extinct megafauna species that is distantly related to wombats but was the size of a small car -- is commonly (but incorrectly) thought of as Australia's 'giant wombat', researchers have shed light on a large species that does belong in the modern-day wombat family. The complete skull of this true fossil giant wombat, found in a Rockhampton cave in Queensland, Australia and estimated to be around 80,000 years old, has been described for the first time.
Published A peculiar protected structure links Viking knots with quantum vortices



Mathematical analysis identifies a vortex structure that is impervious to decay.
Published Revealing the complex magnetization reversal mechanism with topological data analysis


The reliability of data storage and writing speed in advanced magnetic devices depend on drastic, complex changes in microscopic magnetic domain structures. However, it is extremely challenging to quantify these changes, limiting our understanding of magnetic phenomena. To tackle this, researchers developed, using machine learning and topology, an analysis method that quantifies the complexity of the magnetic domain structures, revealing hidden features of magnetization reversal that are hardly seen by human eyes.
Published Curved spacetime in the lab


In a laboratory experiment, researchers have succeeded in realizing an effective spacetime that can be manipulated. In their research on ultracold quantum gases, they were able to simulate an entire family of curved universes to investigate different cosmological scenarios and compare them with the predictions of a quantum field theoretical model.
Published Dinosaur teeth reveal what they didn't eat


Scratches on dinosaur teeth could reveal what they really ate. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) has now been used to infer the feeding habits of large theropods, including Allosaurus and T. rex. By taking 3D images of individual teeth and analyzing the pattern of marks scratched into them, researchers could reason which dinosaurs may have frequently crunched on hard bone and which may have regularly eaten softer foods and prey. This technique opens up a new avenue of research for paleontology, helping us to better understand not only dinosaurs themselves but also the environment and communities in which they lived.
Published Finding simplicity within complexity


With the theory that for every action, even those seemingly complex and random, there is a math problem that describes it, a researcher is publishing a new formula that helps find that equation quickly. Yes, he's speeding up science.
Published Smilodon's sabre teeth



Researchers have tested the biting efficiency of Smilodon, an extinct species of carnivore close to the extant felines. Using high-precision 3D scans and simulation methods, the team has just revealed how these animals managed to bite despite the impressive length of their teeth.
Published Discovery of world's oldest DNA breaks record by one million years


Two-million-year-old DNA has been identified -- opening a 'game-changing' new chapter in the history of evolution. Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone. The ancient DNA has been used to map a two-million-year-old ecosystem which weathered extreme climate change.
Published Coupled computer modeling can help more accurately predict coastal flooding, study demonstrates


Researchers used a unique coupled computer modeling approach to accurately recreate the coastal flooding that occurred during Hurricane Florence, demonstrating that it is more accurate than traditional modeling approaches.
Published Dinosaurs were on the up before asteroid downfall


Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.
Published Meteorites plus gamma rays could have given Earth the building blocks for life


Even as detailed images of distant galaxies from the James Webb Space Telescope show us more of the greater universe, scientists still disagree about how life began here on Earth. One hypothesis is that meteorites delivered amino acids -- life's building blocks -- to our planet. Now, researchers have experimentally shown that amino acids could have formed in these early meteorites from reactions driven by gamma rays produced inside the space rocks.
Published Ancient amphibians had their bones cooked


Scientists have solved a decades-long mystery as to why ancient tetrapods -- amphibian-like creatures that lived over 300 million years ago -- preserved in one of Ireland's most important fossil sites seemingly had their bones cooked after they died.
Published Ankylosaurs battled each other as much as they fought off T. rex


Scientists have found new evidence for how armored dinosaurs used their iconic tail clubs. The exceptional fossil of the ankylosaur Zuul crurivastator has spikes along its flanks that were broken and re-healed while the dinosaur was alive -- injuries that the scientists think were caused from a strike by another Zuul's massive tail club. This suggests ankylosaurs had complex behavior, possibly battling for social and territorial dominance or even engaging in a 'rutting' season for mates.
Published Megadrought: How the current Southwestern North American megadrought is affecting Earth's upper atmosphere


New research, based on two decades' worth of data, shows that in the ten years after its onset in 2000, the Southwestern North American (SWNA) megadrought caused a 30% change in gravity wave activity in Earth's upper atmosphere.
Published Fossil discovery in storeroom cupboard shifts origin of modern lizard back 35 million years


A specimen retrieved from a cupboard of the Natural History Museum in London has shown that modern lizards originated in the Late Triassic and not the Middle Jurassic as previously thought.
Published Lost medieval chapel sheds light on royal burials at Westminster Abbey, finds new study featuring 15th-century reconstruction


New evidence, helping to form a 15th-century reconstruction of part of Westminster Abbey, demonstrates how a section of the building was once the focus for the royal family's devotion to the cult of a disemboweled saint and likely contained gruesome images of his martyrdom.
Published Fossil overturns more than a century of knowledge about the origin of modern birds


Fossilized fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.
Published Mammoth problem with extinction timeline



Paleontologists say environmental DNA is not always helpful in identifying when animals like mammoths went extinct because genetic material found in sediment could have come from animals that died thousands of years earlier.
Published New quantum computing feat is a modern twist on a 150-year-old thought experiment


New research demonstrates a 20x improvement in resetting a quantum bit to its '0' state, using a modern version of the 'Maxwell's demon'.
Published Explainable AI-based physical theory for advanced materials design


Microscopic image data is key to developing low-power, high-speed electronic devices. However, the complex interactions in nanoscale magnetic materials are difficult to understand. A research group has now realized a new functional design theory called 'extended Landau free energy model' that combines topology and AI with free energy to automate the interpretation of the microscopic image. This model illustrates the physical mechanism and critical location of magnetization reversal and proposes a device structure with low energy consumption.