SCIENCE DAILY – Three-dimensional X-ray scanning equipment is being used to help chart the evolution of flight in birds, by digitally reconstructing the size of bird brains using ancient fossils and modern bird skulls. In a collaborative project between National Museums Scotland, the University of Abertay Dundee, and University of Lethbridge, Canada, researchers are using an incredibly sensitive CT (computerised … Read More
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC – The oriental hornet has built-in “solar cells” that generate electricity from sunlight—a first in the animal kingdom, according to a new study. Scientists already knew that the hornet species, for unknown reasons, produced electricity inside its exoskeleton, according to study leader Marian Plotkin of Tel-Aviv University. Plotkin’s late mentor Jacob Ishay made the discovery after observing that … Read More
BBC– Professor Chris Stringer: “It’s nothing short of sensational – we didn’t know know how ancient people in China related to these other humans” Scientists say an entirely separate type of human identified from bones in Siberia co-existed and interbred with our own species. The ancient humans have been dubbed “Denisovans” after the caves in Siberia where their remains were … Read More
GIZMODO– The total number of stars in the Universe “is likely three times bigger than realized.” Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum says there are “possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars,” dramatically increasing the possibility of finding alien civilizations. According to the new study just published in Nature, new observations on the red end of the optical spectrum at … Read More
GIZMODO– Hours before their special news conference today, the cat is out of the bag: NASA has discovered a completely new life form that doesn’t share the biological building blocks of anything currently living in planet Earth. This changes everything. At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is … Read More
