Tree rings may hold clues to impacts of distant supernovas on Earth

Massive explosions of energy happening thousands of light-years from Earth may have left traces in our planet's biology and geology, according to new research.

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Climate change causes landfalling hurricanes to stay stronger for longer

Climate change is causing hurricanes that make landfall to take more time to weaken, reports a new study. Researchers showed that hurricanes that develop over warmer oceans carry more moisture and therefore stay stronger for longer after hitting land. This means that in the future, as the world continues to warm, hurricanes are more likely to reach communities farther inland and be more destructive.

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Poor nutrition in school years may have created 20 cm height gap across nations

A new global analysis has assessed the height and weight of school-aged children and adolescents across the world. The study revealed that school-aged children's height and weight, which are indicators of their health and quality of their diet, vary enormously.

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Baby dinosaurs were 'little adults'

Paleontologists have described for the first time an almost complete skeleton of a juvenile Plateosaurus and discovered that it looked very similar to its parents even at a young age. That could have important implications for how the young animals lived and moved around. The young Plateosaurus, nicknamed 'Fabian', was discovered in 2015 at the Frick fossil site in Switzerland.

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NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collects significant amount of asteroid

Two days after touching down on asteroid Bennu, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission team received on Thursday, Oct. 22, images that confirm the spacecraft has collected more than enough material to meet one of its main mission requirements -- acquiring at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of the asteroid's surface material.

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Humans are born with brains 'prewired' to see words

Humans are born with a part of the brain that is prewired to be receptive to seeing words and letters, setting the stage at birth for people to learn how to read, a new study suggests. Analyzing brain scans of newborns, researchers found that this part of the brain -- called the 'visual word form area' (VWFA) -- is connected to the language network of the brain.

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Smile, wave: Some exoplanets may be able to see us, too

Three decades after astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that Voyager 1 snap Earth's picture from billions of miles away -- resulting in the iconic Pale Blue Dot photograph - two astronomers now offer another unique cosmic perspective: Some exoplanets -- planets from beyond our own solar system - have a direct line of sight to observe Earth's biological qualities from far, far away.

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Turbulent era sparked leap in human behavior, adaptability 320,000 years ago

The first analysis of a sedimentary drill core representing 1 million years of environmental history in the East African Rift Valley shows that at the same time early humans were abandoning old tools in favor of more sophisticated technology and broadening their trade, their landscape was experiencing frequent fluctuations in vegetation and water supply that made resources less reliably available. The findings suggest that instability in their landscape was a key driver of human adaptability.

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Octopus-inspired sucker transfers thin, delicate tissue grafts and biosensors

Thin tissue grafts and flexible electronics have a host of applications for wound healing, regenerative medicine and biosensing. A new device inspired by an octopus's sucker rapidly transfers delicate tissue or electronic sheets to the patient, overcoming a key barrier to clinical application.

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Ground-breaking discovery finally proves rain really can move mountains

A pioneering technique which captures precisely how mountains bend to the will of raindrops has helped solve a long-standing scientific enigma.

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Pinpointing the 'silent' mutations that gave the coronavirus an evolutionary edge

Researchers have identified a number of 'silent' mutations in the roughly 30,000 letters of the COVID-19 virus's genetic code that helped it thrive once it made the leap from bats and other wildlife to humans -- and possibly helped set the stage for the global pandemic.

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Reviving cells after a heart attack

Researchers have unraveled potential mechanisms behind the healing power of extracellular vesicles and demonstrated their capacity to not only revive cells after a heart attack but keep cells functioning while deprived of oxygen during a heart attack. The researchers demonstrated this functionality in human tissue using a heart-on-a-chip with embedded sensors that continuously tracked the contractions of the tissue.

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A billion tiny pendulums could detect the universe's missing mass

Researchers have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter, the cosmos' mystery material that has eluded detection for decades.

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Nitrous oxide emissions pose an increasing climate threat, study finds

Rising nitrous oxide emissions are jeopardizing the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, according to a major new study. The growing use of nitrogen fertilizers in the production of food worldwide is increasing atmospheric concentrations of nitrous oxide -- a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide that remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years.

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Optical illusions explained in a fly's eyes

Why people perceive motion in some static images has mystified not only those who view these optical illusions but neuroscientists who have tried to explain the phenomenon. Now neuroscientists have found some answers in the eyes of flies.

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'AeroNabs' promise powerful, inhalable protection against COVID-19

Scientists have devised a novel approach to halting the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The researchers engineered a completely synthetic, production-ready molecule that straitjackets the crucial SARS-CoV-2 machinery that allows the virus to infect our cells. In an aerosol formulation they tested, these molecules could be self-administered with a nasal spray or inhaler.

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NASA astronauts safely splash down after first commercial crew flight to space station

Two NASA astronauts splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday for the first time in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft, returning from the International Space Station to complete a test flight that marks a new era in human spaceflight.

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Like humans, beluga whales form social networks beyond family ties

A groundbreaking study is the first to analyze the relationship between group behaviors, group type, group dynamics, and kinship of beluga whales in 10 locations across the Arctic. Results show that not only do beluga whales regularly interact with close kin, including close maternal kin, they also frequently associate with more distantly related and unrelated individuals. Findings will improve the understanding of why some species are social, how individuals learn from group members and how animal cultures emerge.

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Scientists propose plan to determine if Planet Nine is a primordial black hole

Scientists have developed a new method to find black holes in the outer solar system, and along with it, determine once-and-for-all the true nature of the hypothesized Planet Nine.

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Human activity threatens vertebrate evolutionary history

A new study maps for the first time the evolutionary history of the world's terrestrial vertebrates: amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles. It explores how areas with large concentrations of evolutionarily distinct species are being impacted by our ever-increasing 'human footprint.'

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