News
Pterosaurs had far more diverse wing shapes than scientists previously knew
7+ hour, 41+ min ago (1074+ words) Study finds published pterosaur wing reconstructions may miss much of the group's true shape and flight diversity. (CREDIT: Mark P Witton) Pterosaurs ruled the air long before birds did, and over more than 100 million years they grew into everything from…...
New modular nanorobot can move, dock to cancer cells, deliver therapy, and be reused
1+ day, 3+ hour ago (1042+ words) The nanorobot can attach itself to specific surfaces and carry out enzymatic reactions there. The enzymes (purple) inside the payload capsule convert molecules from the surrounding environment (left, dark gray) into the desired product (right, light gray). (CREDIT: Marina Br'm)…...
NASA's Lucy spacecraft finds asteroid Donaldjohanson is tumbling through space
1+ day, 7+ hour ago (1156+ words) Lucy found asteroid Donaldjohanson wobbling, scarred by impacts and rich in water-altered minerals from an ancient breakup. (CREDIT: Southwest Research Institute) Asteroid Donaldjohanson does not move through space with the tidy, steady spin scientists often expect. It tumbles in a…...
Spin Launch looks to slingshot satellites into space
1+ day, 11+ hour ago (986+ words) This technology transforms satellite deployment by utilizing a massive rotating arm to launch satellites into low Earth orbit. (CREDIT: Spin Launch) A giant slingshot sounds more like a county fair stunt than a serious space plan. Yet one California company…...
Great apes show mental differences that do not follow human rules
2+ day, 41+ min ago (1051+ words) Great apes show stable cognitive differences, raising new questions about how ape intelligence is structured. (CREDIT: AI-generated image / The Brighter Side of News) That matters because much of comparative psychology has leaned on species-wide averages. If one species performs well…...
New prototype quantum sensor expedites search for dark matter and gravitational waves
2+ day, 11+ hour ago (908+ words) Imperial physicists showed a prototype quantum sensor can cancel noise and recover hidden signals. (CREDIT: Dr Thomas Walker, Imperial College London) The trouble with listening for the faintest events in the universe is that your own instrument often drowns them…...
Scientists discover 'explosive' new immune cell type
3+ day, 7+ hour ago (948+ words) Flatworms use newly identified ruptoblasts, exploding cells triggered by activin, to kill bacteria and reject foreign tissue. (CREDIT: AI-generated image / The Brighter Side of News) Full-body defense does not always look the way textbooks say it should. The study, published…...
Kyawthuite is Earth's rarest mineral " only one specimen has ever been found
3+ day, 11+ hour ago (850+ words) Kyawthuite, found in Myanmar, is known from a single gemstone and may be the rarest mineral on Earth. (CREDIT: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) The world's rarest mineral does not look especially imposing at first glance. It is…...
Distant star TOI-5882 appears to have swallowed a planet
4+ day, 41+ min ago (1018+ words) An artist's conception of a star engulfing a planet. The blue lines traces the path of the planet as it spirals toward the star and ultimately collides with it (the planet is partially as it crashes into the left-hand side…...
Ancient crocodile-like predators rewrite current knowledge of how animals adapted to the land
4+ day, 3+ hour ago (823+ words) New fossil evidence from crocodile-like early tetrapods known as embolomeres suggests they grew without undergoing amphibian-style metamorphosis. The finding challenges the long-held idea that the ancestors of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals all passed through a tadpole-like stage. (CREDIT: Berit Goding)…...