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Enlarge / Artist's conception of the early Solar System, which was at risk of a nearby supernova. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Stars are thought to form within enormous filaments of molecular gas. Regions where one or more of these filaments meet, known as hubs, are where massive stars form.
These massive stars, located nearby, would have put the early Solar System at risk of a powerful supernova. This risk is more than just hypothetical; a research team at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, led by astrophysicist Doris Arzoumanian, looked at isotopes found in ancient meteorites, finding possible evidence of a massive star’s turbulent death.
So why did the Solar System survive? The gas within the filament seems to be able to protect it from the supernova and its onslaught of radioactive isotopes. “The host filament can shield the young Solar System from stellar feedback, both during the formation and evolution of stars (stellar outflow, wind, and radiation) and at the end of their lives (supernovae),” Arzoumanian and her team said in a study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Enlarge (credit: D. Anschutz)
There is a reason countless songs about loneliness exist. Many are relatable, since feeling alone is often part of being human. But a particular song or experience that resonates with one lonely person may mean nothing to someone else who feels isolated and misunderstood.
Human beings are social creatures. Those who feel left out often experience loneliness. To investigate what goes on in the brains of lonely people, a team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, conducted noninvasive brain scans on subjects and found something surprising. The scans revealed that non-lonely individuals were all found to have a similar way of processing the world around them. Lonely people not only interpret things differently from their non-lonely peers, but they even see them differently from each other.
“Our results suggest that lonely people process the world idiosyncratically, which may contribute to the reduced sense of being understood that often accompanies loneliness,” the research team, led by psychologist Elisa Baek, said in a study recently published in Psychological Science.
Enlarge / Artist's view of what InSight looked like after landing. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Mars appears to be a frozen expanse of red dust, gaping craters, and rocky terrain on the outside—but what lies beneath its wind-blasted surface? NASA’s InSight lander might have discovered this before it took its proverbial last breaths in a dust storm.
Whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid has been long debated. While there is no way to observe the Martian core directly, InSight tried. Its seismometer, SEIS, was the first instrument to find possible evidence of a liquid core. In the meantime, its RISE (Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment) instrument had been measuring minuscule changes in the planet’s rotation as it orbited, “wobbles” in its axis caused by the push and pull of the Sun’s gravity.
“Our analysis of InSight’s radio tracking data argues against the existence of a solid inner core and reveals the shape of the core, indicating that there are internal mass anomalies deep within the mantle,” write the researchers behind the instrument in a study recently published in Nature.
Enlarge (credit: A. Martin UW Photography)
Nine brains, blue blood, instant camouflage: It’s no surprise that octopuses capture our interest and our imaginations. Science-fiction creators, in particular, have been inspired by these tentacled creatures.
An octopus's remarkable intelligence makes it a unique subject for marine biologists and neuroscientists as well. Research has revealed the brain power of the octopus allows it to unscrew a jar or navigate a maze. But, like many children, the octopus also develops an impish tendency to push the boundaries of behavior. Several aquariums have found octopuses memorizing guard schedules to sneak into nearby tanks to steal fish; meanwhile, marine biologists have discovered that wild octopuses will punch fish… for no apparent reason.
According to Dr. Jennifer Maher, a professor at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, there are a “number of [different] types of learning [for octopuses]: cognitive tasks like tool use, memory of complex operations for future use, and observational learning.”
Enlarge (credit: Beth Zaiken)
An international team of scientists has published the results of their research into 23 woolly mammoth genomes in Current Biology. As of today, we have even more tantalizing insights into their evolution, including indications that, while the woolly mammoth was already predisposed to life in a cold environment, it continued to make further adaptations throughout its existence.
Years of research, as well as multiple woolly mammoth specimens, enabled the team to build a better picture of how this species adapted to the cold tundra it called home. Perhaps most significantly, they included a genome they had previously sequenced from a woolly mammoth that lived 700,000 years ago, around the time its species initially branched off from other types of mammoth. Ultimately, the team compared that to a remarkable 51 genomes—16 of which are new woolly mammoth genomes: the aforementioned genome from Chukochya, 22 woolly mammoth genomes from the Late Quaternary, one genome of an American mastodon (a relative of mammoths), and 28 genomes from extant Asian and African elephants.
From that dataset, they were able to find more than 3,000 genes specific to the woolly mammoth. And from there, they focused on genes where all the woolly mammoths carried sequences that altered the protein compared to the version found in their relatives. In other words, genes where changes appear to have been naturally selected.
Superhumans don't exist in the real world, but someday you might see super robots. Obviously, robots can be made that are stronger, faster, and better than humans, but do you think there is a limit to how much better we can make them?
Thanks to the ongoing developments in material science and soft robotics, scientists are now developing new technologies that could allow future robots to push the limits of non-human biology. For instance, a team of researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder recently developed a material that could give rise to soft robots capable of jumping 200 times above their own thickness. Grasshoppers, one of the most astonishing leapers on Earth, can leap into the air only up to 20 times their body lengths.
Despite outperforming the insects, the researchers behind the rubber-like jumping material say they took their inspiration from grasshoppers. Similar to the insect, the material stores large amounts of energy in the area and then releases it all at once while making a jump.
Enlarge / The Iguassu Waterfall and nearby forests straddle Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. (credit: Craig Hastings)
Deforestation not only causes the loss of important natural resources, it also contributes to global warming. Deforestation is the cause of about 20 percent of carbon dioxide emissions globally, which is higher than both passenger vehicles and trucks emit.
Large-scale deforestation of the Amazon began several decades ago and has accelerated in recent years, placing Brazil among the countries with the most. But the loss of forests in South America is not an Amazon-specific issue. According to a recent report released by MapBiomas, Argentina has lost almost 20 percent of the Atlantic Forest in the last 37 years.
The Atlantic Forest is a region shared among Argentina (3 percent), Brazil (90 percent), and Paraguay (7 percent). It is composed of tropical and subtropical rainforests extending more than 3,000 kilometers along the Brazilian Atlantic coast and runs inland to the west for almost 1,000 kilometers from the sea, reaching Northeast Argentina and Eastern Paraguay.
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)
String theory began over 50 years ago as a way to understand the strong nuclear force. Since then, it’s grown to become a theory of everything, capable of explaining the nature of every particle, every force, every fundamental constant, and the existence of the Universe itself. But despite decades of work, it has failed to deliver on its promise.
What went wrong, and where do we go from here?
Like most revolutions, string theory had humble origins. It started in the 1960s as an attempt to understand the workings of the strong nuclear force, which had only recently been discovered. Quantum field theory, which had been used successfully to explain electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, wasn’t cutting it, so physicists were eager for something new.
Enlarge (credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology)
Borealopelta markmitchelli found its way back into the sunlight in 2017, millions of years after it had died. This armored dinosaur is so magnificently preserved that we can see what it looked like in life. Almost the entire animal—the skin, the armor that coats its skin, the spikes along its side, most of its body and feet, even its face—survived fossilization. It is, according to Dr. Donald Henderson, curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a one-in-a-billion find.
Beyond its remarkable preservation, this dinosaur is an important key to understanding aspects of Early Cretaceous ecology, and it shows how this species may have lived within its environment. Since its remains were discovered, scientists have studied its anatomy, its armor, and even what it ate in its last days, uncovering new and unexpected insight into an animal that went extinct approximately 100 million years ago.
Borealopelta is a nodosaur, a type of four-legged ankylosaur with a straight tail rather than a tail club. Its finding in 2011 in an ancient marine environment was a surprise, as the animal was terrestrial.
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