Most of Earth’s meteorites can be traced back to just a few collisions within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, two new studies report, including a particularly cataclysmic event about 470 million years ago. The positive side of this discovery, published on October 16 in Natureis that it provides researchers with vital context: By…
Stitching is getting a shocking upgrade. In an experiment with mice, a new strong and flexible thread accelerated wound healing by converting muscle movement into electrical energy, researchers report Oct. 8. Nature Communications. If the material is eventually deemed safe for use in humans, it “could change the way we treat injuries,” says materials scientist…
This exoplanet’s atmosphere is going full steam ahead. A planet beyond our solar system called GJ 9827d has an atmosphere composed almost entirely of hot water molecules, astronomers report in Astrophysical Journal Letters October 4. “We’re using the term ‘steam world,’” says astronomer Ryan MacDonald at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. GJ 9827d…
It’s one of the most massive migrations on Earth: a huge biomass of tiny plankton traveling from the deep sea to the surface. However, not all of these organisms have limbs to propel themselves up. So how some of them manage to undergo such a long journey has been a mystery. Now, a team of…
Historians working with an artificial intelligence assistant have begun to trace the spread of astronomical thinking across Europe in the early 1500s. The analysis contributes to challenging the idea of the “lone genius” of scientific revolutions. Instead, it shows that knowledge of star positions was widespread and used in a variety of disciplines, researchers report…
If you want to have a dream where you know you’re dreaming, you might be in luck. A phone app appears to increase users’ chances of lucid dreaming. Before bed, the app has users listen to a specific sound, such as a series of beeps, and practice associating that signal with a sharp awareness of…
The first glimpse of starlight from a galaxy hosting one of the most distant quasars known has revealed an astronomical wonder. Quasars – extremely bright galactic nuclei – owe their brightness to the intense heat that results when gas swirls around a supermassive black hole. The black hole powering a quasar 13 billion light-years from…
The notion of a midlife crisis is dead. Or maybe it was always the bunk bed. Now some scientists want a postmortem on the theory. The idea that happiness in the Western world declines rapidly around middle age before rebounding has been around since the mid-1960s. In the late 1980s, after compiling data from well-being…
About 6,500 light years from Earth lurks a zombie star cloaked in long tentacles of hot sulfur. No one knows how those needles were formed. But astronomers now know where they are going. New observations, reported on November 1 Astrophysical Journal Letterscaptures the 3-D structure and motion of debris left behind by a supernova that…
