Deep in a Jamaican cave is a treasure trove of bat poop, deposited in sequential layers by generations of bats over 4,300 years.
Analogous to records of the past found in layers of lake mud and Antarctic ice, the guano pile is roughly the height…
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Microbe Discovered in Evolutionary Stasis for Millions of Years
It’s like something out of science fiction. Research led by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has revealed that a group of microbes, which feed off chemical reactions triggered by radioactivity, have been at an evolutionary standstill for…
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Black Hole Pairs Found in Distant Merging Galaxies
Astronomers have found two close pairs of quasars in the distant Universe. Follow-up observations with Gemini North spectroscopically resolved one of the distant quasar pairs, after their discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope and Gaia…
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Appreciating van Leeuwenhoek: The Cloth Merchant Who Discovered Microbes
Imagine trying to cope with a pandemic like COVID-19 in a world where microscopic life was unknown. Prior to the 17th century, people were limited by what they could see with their own two eyes. But then a Dutch cloth merchant changed…
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Lightning Strikes Played a Vital Role in Life’s Origins on Earth
Lightning strikes were just as important as meteorites in creating the perfect conditions for life to emerge on Earth, geologists say.
Minerals delivered to Earth in meteorites more than 4 billion years ago have long been advocated as key…
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Ancient Maya Ambassador’s Bones Show Life of Privilege and Hardship
An important Maya man buried nearly 1,300 years ago led a privileged yet difficult life. The man, a diplomat named Ajpach’ Waal, suffered malnutrition or illness as a child, but as an adult he helped negotiate an alliance between two powerful…
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Sycthian Warriors Stayed Local
As far back as the Greek historian Herodotus, a group of people called the Scythians were considered highly mobile warrior nomads.
Scythian-era people lived across Eurasia from about 700 BCE to 200 BCE, and have long been considered highly mobile…
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Oldest Documented Site of Indiscriminate Mass Killing Revealed in Research
In previous research, ancient massacre sites found men who died while pitted in battle or discovered executions of targeted families.
At other sites, evidence showed killing of members of a migrant community in conflict with previously established…
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Rocky Planet Discovered in Virgo Constellation Could Change Search For Life in Universe
A newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside the solar system, a new international study involving UNSW Sydney shows.
The planet, called Gliese 486b (pronounced Glee-seh), is a…
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Astronomers Accurately Measure the Temperature of Red Supergiant Stars
Red supergiants are a class of star that end their lives in supernova explosions. Their lifecycles are not fully understood, partly due to difficulties in measuring their temperatures. For the first time, astronomers develop an accurate method to…
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