Researchers "Translate" Bat Talk

A machine learning algorithm helped decode the squeaks Egyptian fruit bats make in their roost, revealing that they "speak" to one another as individuals.

Molten iron river discovered speeding beneath Russia and Canada

Deep below our planet’s surface a molten jet of iron nearly as hot as the surface of the sun is picking up speed.  This stream of liquid has been discovered for the first time by telltale magnetic field readings 3000 kilometres below North America and Russia taken from space.

Antimatter atom trapped and measured with a laser for first time

Antihydrogen atoms are made of a positron (a positively charged version of the electron) orbiting a negatively charged antiproton. According to the standard model of particle physics, these anti-atoms should absorb and emit light at the same wavelengths as hydrogen. Now antihydrogen’s spectrum has been measured at last, and it confirms the prediction.

Weather observed for first time on a hot, giant, Jupiter-like alien planet

A weather system — including strong winds and changing cloud cover — has been observed in the atmosphere of a giant gas planet outside our solar system for the first time. HAT-P-7b is 16 times the size of Earth and lies more than 1,000 light years away in the Cygnus constellation.

Feathered dinosaur tail preserved in amber

Exquisitely preserved bones and feathers from the tip of a dinosaur tail have been discovered in a piece of 99-million-year-old amber. The "astonishing" fossil contains the first skeletal remains of a dinosaur ever found preserved in amber.

Ancient eclipse records revise modern calculations of Earth's spin

The observations of ancient astronomers from the time of the Babylonians onwards have revealed our modern days are not getting quite as long as they should be.

Galaxy formation appears to be fuelled by a cold gas cloud

The discovery of an enormous reservoir of ultra-cold gas surrounding a distant galaxy has reshaped our scientific understanding of how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe.

Oldest known evidence of Aboriginal settlement in arid Australia found in Flinders Ranges rock shelter

The chance discovery of a rock shelter in the Flinders Ranges has unearthed one of the most important prehistoric sites in Australia. The site, known as Warratyi, shows Aboriginal Australians settled the arid interior of the country around 49,000 years ago — some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. The shelter, about 550 kilometres north of Adelaide, also contains the first reliably dated evidence of human interaction with megafauna. Artefacts excavated at the site also push back the earliest-known dates on the development of key bone and stone axe technologies and the use of ochre in Australia.

Fragments of fossilised dinosaur brain found for the first time

A brown bit of rock picked up in the UK by a professional fossil hunter a decade ago is the first piece of fossilised dinosaur brain tissue ever to be found. The roughly 133-million-year-old tissue comes from a species of dinosaur known as Iguanodon, and comes from a brain that is similar in structure, although larger, to that of modern-day crocodiles and birds.

Carbon nanotubes turn spinach plants into bomb detectors

A group of MIT engineers has converted ordinary spinach plants into biological bomb detectors.  The engineers implanted customised carbon nanotubes into the leaves of living plants to turn them into a real-time monitoring system for explosive molecules.

New titanosaur stretched half the length of a basketball court

A new species of giant long-necked dinosaur called Savannasaurus elliottorum sheds light on the likely origin of Australian titanosaurs.

Oldest syrinx suggests dinosaurs were no songbirds

CAT scans of fossils from a bird called Vegavis iaai that lived in Antarctica 66 million years ago, reveal the presence of a syrinx, an organ unique to birds, which enables birds to produce their amazing array of sounds.

DNA confirms Lapita ancestors of Pacific Islanders came from Asia

The earliest seafaring ancestors of people living in South Pacific islands such as Vanuatu and Tonga arrived from Asia, an analysis of ancient DNA from four skeletons reveals.

Ancient bee fossil reveals secrets of human ancestor’s habitat

A fossilised bee’s nest provides an insight into the local habitat in which the 'Taung child' Australopithecus lived almost 3 million years ago – and hints that more fossils could be waiting to be discovered.

Genome study reveals rich history of Aboriginal Australians

The most comprehensive genomic study of Indigenous Australians to date has revealed modern humans are all descendants of a single wave of migrants who left Africa about 72,000 years ago.  It confirms modern Aboriginal Australians are the descendants of the first people to inhabit Australia.

Blogger Comments:

1. Some modern humans never left Africa, so they are not descended from those who left.
2. The humans that left Africa interbred with descendants of those humans who had left Africa earlier than them.
3. Those descended from these latest emigrants are therefore also descended from the earlier waves of emigrants.

Scientists stop light in a cloud of atoms

The development could be used to make a quantum logic gate, which is an important building block in the development of quantum computers.

Starving black hole at the heart of the mysterious dimming of Markarian 1018 galaxy

An international team of astronomers has cracked the case of a mysterious galaxy that has suddenly dimmed after shining brightly for 30 years.

How Pluto's moon Charon got its red cap

The north pole of Pluto's moon Charon is dark red due to the accumulation of long-chain hydrocarbons called "tholins".

Teleportation of light particles across cities achieved

Scientists have shown they can teleport photons across a city, a development that has been hailed as "a technological breakthrough".

Indigo dye discovered in 6,000-year-old textiles from Peru

Their use of the complex technique involved in creating indigo dye predates its use by ancient Egyptians by about 1,500 years.

Star cluster Terzan 5: a relic from the early universe

An unusual cluster of stars is a "living fossil" from the early Milky Way.  The cluster, known as Terzan 5, contains two distinct types of stars with an age gap of up to 7 billion years.  The discovery has important implications for our understanding of how galaxies formed in the early universe.

Greenland stromatolite fossils push evidence for life back by 220 million years

The oldest fossils known to date have been discovered in 3.7 billion-year-old rocks in Greenland.

Australopithecus afarensis may have spent some time in trees

The Australopithecus afarensis 'Lucy' died after falling from a tree, according to a new study.

Mind-controlled nanobots could release drugs inside your brain

A man has used thought alone to control nanorobots inside a living creature for the first time. The technology released a drug inside cockroaches in response to the man’s brain activity.

Scientists develop small, reprogrammable quantum computer

Quantum computing has hit another "milestone" with the development of a small quantum computer that can be reprogrammed.

Ghost particles may explain why gravity is so surprisingly weak

A new theory claims that the cosmos is full of unseen particle families that don’t interact with each other. If true, the model could explain why gravity is so puzzlingly weak.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot may explain atmospheric mystery

The howling turbulence of Jupiter's Great Red Spot may be superheating the upper atmosphere above the storm.

Mystery ancient human ancestor found in Australasian family tree

An unknown hominin species that bred with early human ancestors when they migrated from Africa to Australasia has been identified through genome mapping of living humans.

Scientists make single-atom memory from copper and chlorine

Researchers report using a scanning tunnelling microscope to store data at the atomic scale.

Kepler detects 104 new exoplanets

NASA’s exoplanet-hunting satellite, which seemed broken beyond repair 3 years ago, today shows it is still very much alive with a batch of more than 100 new worlds that it discovered in 2015.

Scientists develop way to upsize nanostructures into light, flexible 3-D printed materials

Researchers have developed hierarchical metallic metamaterial with multi-layered, fractal-like 3-D architectures to create structures at centimetre scales incorporating nanoscale features.

New Brain Map Doubles Number of Known Regions

Neurologists have found 97 new areas in the brain and expect to add even more.

Whales Mourn Their Dead

Seven species of the marine mammals have been seen clinging to the dead body of a likely friend or relative, according to a new study.

Bees spew water at their hive-mates when the temperature rises

When honeybee hives get too hot, thirsty bees beg their specialised, water-foraging sisters for more liquid, which ends up cooling the colony.  Honeybees have a few strategies for chilling out: some fan the nest, others leave the hive to increase air flow, and a few zip off looking for ponds or puddles. These “water collector” bees fill their bellies with water, fly back home, then regurgitate the liquid. Other bees slurp it up and spit it out around the hive, allowing the colony to cool as the water evaporates.

X-structure detected at centre of the Milky Way galaxy

An enormous X-shaped structure made of stars lies at the centre of the Milky Way, indicates a new study of infrared light coming from our home galaxy.

Naphthalene helps quantum computing work at room temperature

An international team has used naphthalene as the starting point to create a new carbon-based material that enables quantum computers to work at room temperature.

Polynesian maritime network revealed by tools

Early Polynesian sailors criss-crossed the Pacific for hundreds of years, travelling as far as 2,500 kilometres, according to a new chemical analysis of centuries-old stone tools. The findings suggest there was ongoing, post-colonisation contact between the communities of the eastern Pacific from about AD1300 to the 1600s.

Gravitational waves detected for a second time

The cataclysmic collision of black holes is a frequent occurrence in space, according to a team of scientists that has just detected gravitational waves for the second time in history.

First mirror-image molecule found in interstellar space

Scientists have detected the first chiral molecule in interstellar space, propylene oxide, within an enormous star-forming cloud of gas and dust only 390 light-years away.

Hobbit discovery: 700,000-year-old find could shed new light on evolution

A 700,000-year-old hobbit has been discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores, shedding new light on human evolution.  The dwarf-like ancient relative of modern man stood just one metre tall and has been dated at half a million years older than a hobbit found on the island a decade ago.  The researchers argue their fossil find descended from Homo erectus, which would suggest an incredible case of evolutionary reversal where human bodies — including brains — actually shrunk.

Blogger Comment:

The simplest explanation is that the "hobbits" are Australopithecines.  The material evidence is consistent with this and inconsistent with both Homo habilis and Homo erectus.  The view that they were later species that "shrunk" is not the simplest theory, and the proposition that smaller primate brains would be more adaptive than larger brains is exceedingly unlikely and needs plausible supporting argument.  There are many examples of other primates (orang utans, gibbons, japanese macaques) migrating enormous distances from their place of speciation.

New DNA technology confirms Aboriginal people as first Australians

A new look at ancient bones with the latest DNA technology has confirmed Aboriginal Australians as the continent's first people. Researchers say the findings overturn a 2001 paper that argued the oldest known Australian human remains found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales were from an extinct lineage of modern humans that occupied the continent before Aboriginal Australians.

Dark radiation may be causing universe to expand faster than expected

The universe is expanding 5 to 9 per cent faster than expected and scientists speculate the finding may be explained by a mysterious force called dark radiation.

Madagascan ancestors crossed Indian Ocean from South-East Asia

Ancient charred grains of rice and mung beans excavated from Madagascar provide the first archaeological evidence that ancestors of people living on the East African island known as Malagasy came from South-East Asia.

Asteroids delivered bulk of the Moon's water

Water-rich asteroids that bombarded the Moon between 4.5 billion and 4.3 billion years ago were the main source of water in the Moon's interior.

Mars is emerging from an ice age

Mars is at the tail-end of an ice age that would have seen large swathes of the dusty red planet covered with ice.

Neanderthals built mystery underground circles 175,000 years ago

Archæological evidence now suggests Neanderthals were capable of symbolic thought, had a basic knowledge of chemistry, medicine and cooking, and perhaps some capacity for speech. They may even have taught modern humans new artisanal skills when the two species met and interbred.

A reassessment of evidence from Bruniquel cave, near Toulouse in south-west France, suggests even more Neanderthal sophistication. In one chamber, 336 metres from the cave entrance, are enigmatic structures – including a ring 7 metres across – built from stalagmites snapped from the cave floor.

Monkey seen caring for dying mate then grieving after she dies

The alpha male of a group of snub-nosed monkeys and his dying partner spent a final, tender hour together beneath the tree from which she had fallen minutes earlier, cracking her head on a rock. Before she succumbed, he gently touched and groomed her. And after she was dead he remained by her side for 5 minutes, touching her and pulling gently at her hand, as if to try and revive her.

Trees observed resting branches while ‘asleep’

For the first time, trees have been shown to undergo physical changes at night that can be likened to sleep, or at least to day-night cycles that have been observed experimentally in smaller plants.  Branches of birch trees have now been seen drooping by as much as 10 centimetres at the tips towards the end of the night.

Fossils push back date of large multi-celled life by 1 billion years

Seaweed-like fossils found in rocks in China dated to around 1.56 billion years ago are the earliest known examples of larger organisms made up of many cells.

World's oldest fossil micrometeorites hint of oxygen in early Earth's atmosphere

The oldest fossils of cosmic dust ever discovered provide a glimpse into atmospheric conditions above the Earth more than 2.7 billion years ago and could do the same on other planets.