Did viruses play a role in the extinction of Neanderthals? That’s what researchers from the Federal University of São Paulo have been trying to figure out, and in doing so, ended up uncovering the oldest known human viruses in a set of Neanderthal bones from over 50,000 years ago. Advertisement To...
photo: Creative Commons / Tim Evanson
I can remember when Perseverance was launched, travelled out into the Solar System and landed on Mars in February 2021. In all the time since it arrived, having clocked up 1000 days of exploration, it has collected 23 samples from different geological areas within the Jezero Crater. The area was...
photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
Scientists have accomplished a whale of a feat. They’ve identified previously unknown complexity in whale communication by analyzing thousands of recorded sequences of sperm whale clicks with artificial intelligence. Variations in tempo, rhythm and length of the whales’ click sequences, called...
photo: Creative Commons / Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith
By Anthony King A green industrial future for Europe may depend on an element that is part of a household staple: table salt. Dr John Abou-Rjeily, a researcher at Tiamat Energy in France, is using sodium to develop rechargeable batteries. Sodium is a part of sodium chloride, an ionic compound that...
photo: Creative Commons / Arria Belli
The mold Aspergillus oryzae helps to make several fermented foods, including sake, soy sauce, and miso. Knowable Magazine This article was originally featured on Knowable Magazine. Nearly 9,000 years ago, around the time that humans were first domesticating corn and pigs, some people in China were...
photo: Creative Commons / Forrest O. https://flickr.com/people/37996589754@N01
This artist’s concept shows what the exoplanet 55 Cancri e could look like. Also called Janssen, 55 Cancri e is a so-called super-Earth, a rocky planet significantly larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, which orbits its star at a distance of only 2.25 million kilometers (0.015...
photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/Seán Doran