Black holes formed quasars less than a billion years after Big Bang
A surprisingly normal looking quasar when the Universe was 750 million years old. Enlarge (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)) Supermassive black holes appear to be present at the center of every galaxy, goin.....»»
Zebrafish reveal how bioelectricity shapes muscle development
A question left unanswered in a biologist's lab notebook for 40 years has finally been explained, thanks to a little fish that couldn't wriggle its tail......»»
Experiment captures atoms in free fall to look for gravitational anomalies caused by dark energy
Dark energy—a mysterious force pushing the universe apart at an ever-increasing rate—was discovered 26 years ago, and ever since, scientists have been searching for a new and exotic particle causing the expansion......»»
Assessing the place of citizen science in modern research
In recent years, numerous fields of research have seen an explosion in the volume and complexity of their scientific data. To keep pace with these changes, EU-funded research projects are increasingly crowdsourcing their data through citizen science.....»»
The surprising behavior of black holes in an expanding universe
A physicist investigating black holes has found that, in an expanding universe, Einstein's equations require that the rate of the universe's expansion at the event horizon of every black hole must be a constant, the same for all black holes. In turn.....»»
A much-missed Android phone maker is back with a real winner
Two years ago, Realme disappeared from the global market. Now it's back with the Realme GT 6, and it's exactly the return I wanted......»»
In Colombia, a long, perilous romance to save the harpy eagle
Wounded and wary, the young couple appear to be into each other: their arranged romance, years in the making, is aimed at preserving the rapidly disappearing harpy eagle, one of the world's largest raptors......»»
VW Group, Rivian forming joint venture for EV software; VW commits $5 billion
VW Group will invest $1 billion in Rivian initially and another $4 billion by 2026 under deal designed to help VW accelerate roll out of software-defined vehicles......»»
Is the total value of unplayed Steam games really $19 billion? Probably not.
It's fun to speculate, but sales and library quirks make it impossible to know. Enlarge / Blast away all the guilt you want in PowerWash Simulator, but there's no need to feel dirty in the real world about your backlog. (credit:.....»»
1,500-year-old reliquary discovered
Since the summer of 2016, archaeologists from Innsbruck have been carrying out excavations in a late antique hilltop settlement in southern Austria. Two years ago, they made a sensational discovery: a Christian reliquary was still hidden in a previou.....»»
PFAS "forever" chemical laws need an overhaul—recent court rulings highlight the loopholes
As awareness of toxic, synthetic chemical pollution from per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) increases, more legal settlements in billion dollar amounts are being made between chemical companies and public water suppliers, both in the US and E.....»»
Thirty years of change of fish communities in South China Sea
Daya Bay is a representative semi-enclosed bay in the South China Sea, with a variety of ecosystems including mangroves, coral reefs, shelves, estuaries, salt marshes and quagmires. It is an important spawning ground, feeding ground and germplasm ban.....»»
Second Apple campus at Research Triangle Park delayed by up to four years
Work still hasn’t started on a second Apple campus some six years after the company announced the plan, and a new report says that work on the project has now been further delayed by “up to four years.” That could mean a full decade between.....»»
Detecting intelligent life that"s light years away: Greenhouse gases could signal alien activity
If aliens modified a planet in their solar system to make it warmer, we'd be able to tell. A new UC Riverside study identifies the artificial greenhouse gases that would be giveaways of a terraformed planet......»»
Sediments reveal the ancient ocean during a mass extinction event
About 183 million years ago, volcanic activity in modern South Africa unleashed an estimated 20,500 gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ocean–atmosphere system over a period of 300 to 500 thousand years. Known as the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic E.....»»
Apple"s on-device email categorization is a feature years in the making
Apple recently announced an all-new email categorization feature for iOS 18, but a newly-discovered prototype of the UI dates back to around five years ago, before the release of iOS 13.Apple's email categorization feature was originally created with.....»»
Bird flu has infected Idaho dairy farms: Is the state prepared for an outbreak?
Bird flu virus has been a longstanding issue in Idaho, having plagued Idaho's poultry and waterfowl populations for years. But this year's strain is bringing something new—its ability to infect cows......»»
Study finds strong path dependence in Plio-Pleistocene glaciations through climate model simulations
The climate modeling community has been particularly vexed by the glacial/interglacial cycles of the past three million years, when the Northern Hemisphere oscillated between times with and without large ice sheets......»»
Astronomers think they’ve figured out how and when Jupiter’s Red Spot formed
Astronomers concluded it is not the same and that Cassini's spot disappeared in 1708. Enlarge / Enhanced Juno image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot in 2018. It is likely not the same one observed by Cassini in the 1600s. (credit: G.....»»
New research challenges black holes as dark matter explanation
The gravitational wave detectors LIGO and Virgo have detected a population of massive black holes whose origin is one of the biggest mysteries in modern astronomy. According to one hypothesis, these objects may have formed in the very early universe.....»»
What the 3.2 million-year-old Lucy fossil reveals about nudity and shame
Fifty years ago, scientists discovered a nearly complete fossilized skull and hundreds of pieces of bone of a 3.2-million-year-old female specimen of the genus Australopithecus afarensis, often described as "the mother of us all." During a celebratio.....»»