New research led by planetary scientists from Southwest Research Institute and KTH Royal Institute of Technology suggests that evidence for vapor erupting from Jupiter’s icy moon Europa may be less conclusive than once believed. This is an artist’s impression of a water-vapor geyser on Europa. Image credit: University of Cologne. “The evidence for water vapor plumes on Europa isn’t as...

New research led by planetary scientists from Southwest Research Institute and KTH Royal Institute of Technology suggests that evidence for vapor erupting from Jupiter’s icy moon Europa may be less conclusive than once believed. This is an artist’s impression of a water-vapor geyser on Europa. Image credit: University of Cologne. “The evidence for water vapor plumes on Europa isn’t as...

Hominins at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel relied on driftwood gathered along a lakeshore to fuel their hearths, according to new research led by archaeologists from the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social and Bar-Ilan University; 780,000-year-old charcoal fragments from the site show that survival wasn’t about finding the perfect wood — it...

A large tyrannosaurid dinosaur may have stalked the floodplains of what is now New Mexico nearly 74 million years ago, according to a team of paleontologists from the University of Bath, Montana State University and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Bistahieversor sealeyi hunting Pentaceratops sternbergii. Image credit: A. Belov / CC BY 3.0. “The Tyrannosauridae were among the...

When an antenna of the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) is touched with a heated probe, something curious happens: the insect turns its attention to the burned spot, grooming it repeatedly, for far longer than it would after a harmless touch or no contact at all. According to team of entomologists at University of Sydney, that behavior may be evidence of something scientists have long debated —...

Researchers have developed a new method to identify whether black hole mergers occurred inside dense clouds of dark matter, potentially opening a fresh avenue for studying one of astronomy’s biggest mysteries. Gravitational waves observed by Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) twin detectors were produced during the final fraction of a second of the merger of two black holes...

Grape consumption may improve the skin’s barrier against environmental damage by rewriting gene activity, according to new research led by Western New England University. Grape phytochemicals interact with the microbiome, followed by transmission through the gut-organ axes, resulting in modulation of gene expression and subsequent downstream responses. Image credit: Nicky Pe. Grapes contain hundreds...

Scientists have extracted and analyzed proteins from the tooth enamel of six Homo erectus individuals who lived in China roughly 400,000 years ago, offering an unprecedented glimpse into the genetic makeup of one of humanity’s most successful and far-ranging ancestors. Their results suggest that Homo erectus may have carried genetic variants that were later passed to Denisovans and eventually...

Unusual gases rising from geothermal springs within the Kafue Rift of Zambia suggest a deep fracture in Earth’s crust could mark the early stages of a new tectonic boundary. Location map of the extensional zone within the Central African Plateau of Zambia. The Kafue Rift is connected to the Luano and Luangwa rifts to the NE, and the Western branch of the EARS at the Rukwa rift (RRB) and Rungwe...

When an antenna of the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) is touched with a heated probe, something curious happens: the insect turns its attention to the burned spot, grooming it repeatedly, for far longer than it would after a harmless touch or no contact at all. According to team of entomologists at University of Sydney, that behavior may be evidence of something scientists have long debated —...