NASA’s Swift satellite recently detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from a source toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. The outburst, produced by a rare X-ray nova, announced the presence of a previously unknown stellar-mass black hole. “Bright X-ray novae are so rare that they’re essentially once-a-mission events and this is the…
One of the unsolved mysteries of contemporary science is how highly organized structures can emerge from the random motion of particles. This applies to many situations ranging from astrophysical objects that extend over millions of light years to the birth of life on Earth. The surprising discovery of self-organized electromagnetic fields in counter-streaming ionized gases…
Take a good look around on your next nature hike. Not only are you experiencing the wonders of the outdoors – you’re probably also witnessing evolution in action. New research from the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) on the effect of insects on plant populations has shown that evolution can happen more quickly than was…
A new study suggests that present-day Europeans share more genes with now-extinct Neandertals than do living Africans, at least partly because of interbreeding that took place between 37,000 and 86,000 years ago. Cross-species mating occurred when Stone Age humans left Africa and encountered Neandertals, or possibly a close Neandertal relative, upon reaching the Middle East…
NASA’s Curiosity rover is getting ready to take its first scoop of Martian soil. The analysis of the soil sample will be one of the rover’s most crucial tasks, helping establish whether Gale Crater ever offered favorable conditions for life. First, Curiosity started to prepare by using one of its wheels to scuff the soil…
UCLA astronomers report the discovery of a remarkable star that orbits the enormous black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy in a blistering 11-and-a-half years — the shortest known orbit of any star near this black hole. The star, known as S0-102, may help astronomers discover whether Albert Einstein was right in…
The most precise measurement ever made of the speed of the universe’s expansion is in, thanks to NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, and it’s a doozy. Space itself is pulling apart at the seams, expanding at a rate of 46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles per second per megaparsec (a megaparsec is roughly 3 million light-years)….
The braincase of a skull may well be, as advertised, a strongly built and cleverly engineered structure, but listening to all that incessant banging coming from the direction of the crab apple tree in the garden, one has to wonder: is it really strong enough to keep a woodpecker from having the most terrible headache?…
Another study casts doubt on the famous arsenic-life findings, showing the bacterium actually grabs phosphorus wherever it can be found.
Fragments of a 1.5-million-year-old skull from a child recently found in Tanzania suggest early hominids weren’t just occasional carnivores but regular meat eaters, researchers say. The finding helps build the case that meat-eating helped the human lineage evolve large brains, scientists added. “I know this will sound awful to vegetarians, but meat made us human,”…