This artist’s concept shows the Dawn Spacecraft in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
Eleven years ago, NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft toward our main asteroid belt, bound for its two largest rocky worlds. In 2011, Dawn arrived at Vesta, then made its way to Ceres in 2015. After becoming the first spacecraft to orbit two worlds beyond Earth, as well as the first to visit a dwarf planet — arriving at Ceres just months before New Horizons’ flyby of Pluto ...read more
The gut microbiome may be an important window to our health and understanding the obesity epidemic. (Credit: Anatomy Insider/Shutterstock)
Immigrating to another country changes everything — including your gut bacteria.
When immigrants and refugees move to the United States, their gut microbiome rapidly Westernizes and becomes less diverse, according to a new study that analyzed the effects of migration on Hmong and Karen immigrant communities in Minnesota. Their findings ...read more
A time-lapse created by astronomer Yvette Cendes shows the shockwave of Supernova 1987A expanding outward and crashing into debris. (Credit: Yvette Cendes, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto)
Astronomers have been captivated by Supernova 1987A — the death of a supergiant star about 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud — since it was first spotted in the night sky in 1987.
Supernova 1987A remains the brightest supernova hu ...read more
Human cells infected with human papillomavirus. (Credit: Komsan Loonprom/Shutterstock)
One version of the human papillomavirus, which leads to most cases of cervical cancer, evolved in humans as a result of sex with Neanderthal, a new study shows.
The American Cancer Society estimates more than 13,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer this year and 30 percent will die from the disease. HPV is responsible for nearly every case of cervical cance ...read more
Onlookers view the critically endangered Chinese sturgeon at the Beijing Aquarium. (Credit: Wikimedia)
Critically endangered Chinese sturgeon may be even worse off than we thought, reports a team of researchers from the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research in Beijing.
These ancient fish are anadromous, which means they live in the ocean and migrate up rivers to spawn in fresh water. For the Chinese sturgeon, this annual spawning quest brings them up China’s Yangtze ...read more
Using the ESO’s sensitive GRAVITY instrument, researchers have confirmed that the enormous object at the heart of our galaxy is — as scientists have assumed for many years — a supermassive black hole. (Credit: ESO/Gravity Consortium/L. Calçada)
Scientists have finally confirmed that the massive object at the heart of our galaxy is, in fact, a supermassive black hole.
Researchers used the European Southern Observatory’s sensitive GRAVITY instrument on the Very Lar ...read more
Teeth can tell researchers a lot about the past. (Credit: sruilk/shutterstock)
Childhood wasn’t easy for Neanderthals.
A new study of Neanderthal teeth published in Science Advances this week tells us new details about what life might have been like for early hominin children in a rapidly changing environment. It’s an unprecedented look into how our ancient cousins coped with harsh climate conditions and seasonal changes in resource availability.
Also among the findings ...read more
An illustration of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft. (Credit: SwRI)
From Ryugu to Bennu, asteroid exploration has been all the rage among astronomers lately. And now, we’re one step closer to exploring some of the most mysterious asteroids in the solar system.
On October 30, NASA announced that they’ve been given the green light to start building Lucy, a spacecraft that will probe Jupiter’s trojan asteroids and is set to launch in October of 2021. On top of giving the g ...read more
Source: NASA Earth Observatory.
Seriously, this gargantuan coffin-like object really was photographed by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station on September 23, 2018.
If you guessed that it is an iceberg, you are right.
A broader view of B-15T, from NASA’s Terra Satellite. (Source: NASA Earth Observatory)
Known rather unimaginatively as B-15T, the spooky, Brobdingnagian berg is seen here adrift in the South Atlantic Ocean between South Georgia ...read more
David Mzee, 28, a patient in the study, learns to walk again thanks to electrical stimulation. (Credit: École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne)
A spinal cord injury used to mean life bound to a wheelchair. Now, three spinal cord injury patients are able to walk and even ride a modified bicycle, new research shows. The trio got on their feet again thanks to well-timed and precise electrical stimulation in the spinal cord combined with rehabilitation. The results are just ...read more
