First millipede with more than 1,000 legs

Researchers in Australia have described the first reported millipede to live up to its name. The animal has 1,306 legs — breaking the previous record of 750 legs — and was found 60 metres underground in a mining area of Western Australia. It is pale and blind, with a long, thread-like body comprising up to 330 segments. Researchers named the species Eumillipes persephone, after the Greek goddess of the underworld, Persephone.

NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has travelled into the Sun’s corona — the first to have ever broached our star’s outer atmosphere. The Parker probe crossed the much-anticipated boundary, known as the Alfvén surface, on 28 April. It took several months for scientists to download the data and confirm the achievement.

Oldest domestic dog remains in Americas

A tooth found in caves in Haida Gwaii in Canada is the earliest reported remains of a domestic dog in the Americas. Radiocarbon dating pinpoints the tooth’s age to 13,100 years ago — the oldest archæological evidence of human occupation in the area by 2,000 years. The findings stand alongside oral histories that record the Haida people’s long history on the islands. Researchers predict more discoveries to come, because the caves on the west coast of Canada are mostly unexplored by archæologists.

DeepMind AI tackles one of chemistry’s most valuable techniques

The artificial-intelligence company DeepMind has developed a new machine-learning model to predict the density of a molecule’s electrons — a key step to calculating its physical properties. The algorithm relies on a technique called density functional theory (DFT), which has been hugely successful in chemistry, biology and materials science. But DFT goes a bit wonky in some cases, because it’s not a perfect reflection of the complex quantum mechanics that govern matter. Researchers trained an artificial neural network on data from hundreds of accurate solutions derived from quantum theory, plus some handy laws of physics.

Newly Found Dinosaur Had a Battle Axe for a Tail

Chilean researchers have discovered a new species of ankylosaur in the subantarctic tip of Chile. Stegouros elengassen was about 2 metres long, with a relatively large head, slender limbs and a flat, frond-shaped tail unlike any seen before.

Quantum Simulators Create a Totally New Phase of Matter

Physicists have created a physical simulation of an exotic and elusive state of matter first predicted in the 1970s, called a spin liquid. Spin liquids contain arrangements of electron spins — the subatomic equivalent of bar magnets — in a solid material that are intrinsically unstable, like the molecules in a liquid. Evidence for their existence is still preliminary, but researchers have now been able to simulate them using atoms suspended in a vacuum — a type of quantum computer that has received less attention than other technologies. Such ‘quantum simulations’ show promise as early applications of quantum computers.

This tiny iron-rich world is extraordinarily metal

Astronomers have spotted the tiniest, most metal-based planet yet — an iron-rich world that is 9 parsecs away from Earth and zips around its star once every 8 hours. The planet, known as GJ 367b, is three-quarters the size of Earth, but much denser. Its temperature reaches a searing 1,500 ℃ during the day — nearly hot enough for its iron to begin to melt.

DeepMind’s AI helps untangle the mathematics of knots

Artificial-intelligence (AI) powerhouse DeepMind has teamed up with mathematicians to spot previously unseen patterns and seek new discoveries. Researchers trained a machine-learning algorithm on vast amounts of data about knots and revealed a formula linking two properties of knots — which the mathematicians then proved rigorously. In a separate test, the team found a potential pattern related to symmetries, which had been sought for decades.

Earth’s eccentric orbit paced the evolution of marine phytoplankton

Variations in Earth’s orbit might help to determine the evolution of marine phytoplankton. Researchers analysed fossils of coccolithophores that lived in the Pleistocene period (from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) alongside deviations in the circularity of Earth’s annual orbit, which cycles approximately every 100,000 and 400,000 years. They found that the diversity of plankton species increased during periods of high eccentricity of Earth’s orbit, when the seasons vary more in equatorial regions.

A pair of nearby supermassive black holes are heading for a collision

A newly discovered pair of supermassive black holes is closer to Earth than any known so far. The two are only 1,600 light years apart, so astronomers predict they will smash together in a mere 250 million years. One sits at the centre of the galaxy NGC 7727, with the other just off to the side. Many more off-centre black holes could be hiding throughout the Universe, say astronomers — in which case, the cosmos might contain up to 30% more of the celestial objects than previously thought.

World's first living robots can now reproduce

The world’s first living robots, created from frog cells, self-replicate by pushing loose cells together. The Pac-Man-shaped blobs are made up of stem cells removed from frog embryos, which naturally cohere and develop hair-like protuberances called cilia. In a dish, they can move around and push loose stem cells into piles with their ‘mouths’. These piles can then develop into ciliated ‘offspring’, and go on to build their own pile-of-stem-cell babies.

Eurasia’s oldest surviving jewellery?

A 41,500-year-old pendant carved from a piece of a woolly mammoth tusk could be the oldest known example of decorated jewellery in Eurasia made by humans. The purpose and meaning of the designs on its surface are unclear, but they could represent a counting system, lunar observations or a way of scoring kills. The pendant was found in the Stajnia Cave, in Poland, alongside a 7-centimetre-long awl — a pointed tool used for making holes — shaped from a piece of horse bone.

Double-slit experiment performed with molecules

For the first time, scientists have used individual molecules to act as the slits in the iconic double-slit experiment that demonstrates quantum objects behaving as both particles and waves. Researchers created an ultracold molecular beam in which helium atoms collide with deuterium molecules. They used lasers to coax each deuterium molecule into a superimposed state of two different orientations, at right angles. The helium atoms scatter off the superimposed deuterium on two different paths that interfere with each other, showing the quantum interference effect that is characteristic of the classic double-slit experiment. Because the set-up is tuneable, it could be a step towards achieving ‘quantum control’ — which would harness quantum features to manipulate chemical reactions.

Homo naledi infant skull discovery suggests they buried their dead

The first partial skull of a Homo naledi child has been found in the remote depths of the Rising Star cave in South Africa. The bone fragments and teeth belong to a child that died almost 250,000 years ago, when it was approximately 4–6 years old. Palæoanthropologists have named the child Leti after the Setswana word letimela, meaning ‘the lost one’. The remains were found on a ledge in a tiny 20-by-80 centimetre passage — suggesting, that the skull was placed there deliberately, as a form of funerary practice.

Mammoth tusk recovered from deep sea

Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute made a surprising discovery while using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore the waters off California. Not only was it a mammoth tusk, it might be from an animal that died during the Lower Palæolithic era, from which well-preserved specimens are rare. The finding suggests that the ocean floor could be an as-yet-untapped source of palæontological treasures.

First quantum computer to pack 100 qubits

IBM’s newest quantum-computing chip packs in 127 quantum bits (qubits), making it the first such device to reach 3 digits. But the achievement is only one step in an aggressive agenda boosted by billions of dollars in investments across the industry. IBM and other companies — including the technology behemoths Google and Honeywell, and a slew of well-funded start-ups — ultimately aim to make quantum computers capable of performing certain tasks that are out of reach of even the largest supercomputers that use classical technology.

NASA spacecraft will slam into asteroid in first planetary-defence test

NASA will slam a multimillion-dollar spacecraft into an asteroid to test whether it is possible to change a space rock’s trajectory. This is only a test — the asteroid, Dimorphos, is not a threat to Earth. If the mission launches successfully next week, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will hit Dimorphos at 6.6 kilometres per second late next year. The impact should shrink Dimorphos’s orbit so that it orbits its companion asteroid at least 73 seconds faster than before — a change that will be detectable from Earth. A tiny probe funded by the Italian Space Agency will be launched from DART and will fly past to photograph the aftermath.

Electronegativity’s role in determining bond strengths needs to be rethought

Textbook knowledge about how to determine the strengths of chemical bonds seems to be oversimplified. Chemical bonds are usually stronger between atoms that have a larger difference in their electronegativity — which is influenced by the number of protons in the nucleus and the organisation of the electrons. But in some cases, researchers have found that differences in the sizes of the atom, rather than their electronegativity, determine the bond strength. The stability and length of chemical bonds are key factors in molecules’ structure and reactivity, so understanding them is important for developing everything from pharmaceuticals to materials.

Genes Reveal How Some Rockfish Live up to 200 Years

Some Pacific Ocean rockfishes can live for more than 200 years. Their secret to longevity: slowly growing large in the frigid depths. Researchers have found that the longest-lived rockfishes, a group that includes several species that can live for more than 105 years, have genes that indirectly affect lifespan by influencing size and adaptability. They also have more copies of genes linked to DNA maintenance and resisting the inflammation that often comes with age.

Diamond delivers long-sought mineral from the deep Earth

Small black specks in a diamond mined decades ago in Botswana have turned out to be a vital ingredient of the deep Earth. This is the first time the mineral has been identified in nature, after decades of searching.

Earth’s first continents emerged from the ocean 700m years earlier than thought

Earth’s first continents emerged from the ocean between 3.3 billion and 3.2 billion years ago, before the existence of plate tectonics. An analysis of rock sediments from India places the rise of the first stable continents some 700 million years earlier than previously thought. The rocks might have been formed by lava piling up from continuous volcanic activity on Earth’s crust, and floating above the water like an iceberg.

Astrophysicists unveil glut of gravitational-wave detections

Gravitational-wave observatories have released their latest catalogue of cosmic collisions, including one featuring the lightest neutron star ever detected in this way, as well as two clashes involving surprisingly large black holes. The detections come from the LIGO and Virgo observatories in the United States and Italy, respectively, which made the landmark first detection of gravitational waves in 2015.

Sponge cells hint at origins of nervous system

Sponges are expert filter feeders, straining tens of thousands of litres of water through their bodies every day to collect their food. And they do this without a brain, or a single neuron, to their name. Now, researchers have sequenced the RNA in various individual cells from a freshwater sponge (Spongilla lacustris) and found that sponges use an intricate cell communication system to regulate their feeding and to potentially weed out invading bacteria. The findings could help to understand how animals’ nervous systems evolved.

Honeybees use social distancing when mites threaten hives

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) change the way they interact with one another when infested with the mite Varroa destructor, a pathogen that can cause colony collapse. Researchers in Italy studied video recordings of the inside of hives and found that, in mite-infested hives, older members of the colony performed dances to direct other bees to food sources at the periphery, keeping them away from the centre — where young bees, the queen and brood cells are located. The researchers also observed more grooming activity, which can help to reduce the spread of parasites, at the centre of the infested hives.

Physicists fail to find mysterious 'sterile neutrino' particles

Researchers have, once again, failed to find any signs that hypothesised particles called sterile neutrinos exist. Neutrinos are some of the most abundant elementary particles in the Universe. There are three known types, but scientists have been searching for a fourth kind of neutrino for decades. If found, it could help to solve pressing problems in particle physics. Now, an experiment called MicroBooNE at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory did not turn up evidence of sterile neutrinos.

DNA reveals surprise ancestry of mysterious Chinese mummies

The genomes of 13 remarkably preserved 4,000-year-old mummies from China’s Tarim Basin suggest they weren’t migrants who brought technology from the West, as was previously supposed. Instead, the remains probably belong to Indigenous people who might have adopted agricultural methods from neighbouring groups. Researchers traced the ancestry of these early Chinese farmers to Stone Age hunter-gatherers who lived in Asia some 9,000 years ago.

Nearly 500 Mesoamerican monuments revealed by laser mapping — many for the first time

Scientists have uncovered nearly 500 ancient monuments in southern Mexico using an airborne laser mapping technology called lidar. Dating as far back as 3,000 years ago, the buried structures include huge artificial plateaus, built by the Olmec and Maya civilisations, that might have been used for ceremonial gatherings.

Signs of first planet found outside our galaxy

Astronomers have found hints of what could be the first planet ever discovered outside our galaxy. The possible planet, which is Saturn-sized, is in the Messier 51 galaxy, around 8 million parsecs away from the Milky Way. Nearly 5,000 planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun have been found so far, but all of these have been located within our galaxy.

Ancient DNA points to origins of modern domestic horses

Archæologists have used ancient DNA samples to identify the genetic homeland of modern horses, where the animals were first domesticated around 4,200 years ago. They found that modern domestic horses probably originated on the steppes around the Volga and Don rivers, now part of Russia, before spreading across Eurasia, ultimately replacing all pre-existing horse lineages.

Extinct Japanese wolf may hold clues to origins of dogs

The extinct Japanese wolf (Canis lupus hodophilax) might have come from a vanished population of grey wolves in east Asia that also gave rise to modern dogs. Researchers sequenced the genomes of nine specimens of the species (the last one was killed in 1905) to find where it sits on the canine evolutionary tree. The results, which have not yet been peer reviewed, show the Japanese wolf to be more closely related to the ancestor of dogs than are any other wolves found so far.

Physicists make most precise measurement ever of neutron’s lifetime

Physicists have measured the lifetime of the neutron more precisely than ever before. The average time it takes for the subatomic particle to decay is 877.75 seconds, according to an experiment that used magnetic fields to trap ultra-cold neutrons. The results have twice the precision of similar measurements, and are consistent with theoretical calculations. But they do not explain why neutrons live nearly 10 seconds longer in a different experiment that involves watching the particles decay as they move in a beam.

Blogger Comments:

The discrepancy might be explained by special relativity, according to which "clocks tick relatively more slowly" (time expands) for neutrons travelling in a beam.

First mission to the Trojan asteroids

The first spacecraft to journey to the Trojan asteroids, which share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun, is set to lift off on 16 October. NASA’s Lucy mission — named after the iconic hominid fossil — will spend the next 12 years performing gravitational gymnastics to swoop past six of the asteroids. The Trojans probably formed when the planets were just coalescing, so exploring them can reveal more about the birth of the Solar System.

Evidence for tobacco use going back to the Pleistocene

Hunter-gatherers in North America might have been using tobacco around 12,300 years ago — 9,000 years earlier than was previously documented. Archaeologists found four burnt tobacco-plant seeds in an ancient hearth excavated in Utah. The seeds themselves were too small and fragile to be dated, but other burned woody material in the hearth is around 12,300 years old.

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is swirling faster

The winds spinning around the outer edge of Jupiter’s striking Great Red Spot are speeding up, according to long-term observations by the Hubble telescope. Observations over the past century have already revealed that the storm is mysteriously shrinking. Hubble data collected between 2009 and 2020 add a new twist. Compared with a decade ago, when wind speeds in the Great Red Spot’s outer ring were typically just above 90 metres per second, they now exceed 100 metres per second.

First image of a solid made of electrons

If the conditions are just right, some of the electrons inside a material will arrange themselves into a tidy honeycomb pattern — like a solid within a solid. Physicists have now for the first time directly imaged these ‘Wigner crystals’, named after theorist Eugene Wigner. Researchers built a device containing atom-thin layers of two semiconductors and cooled it to just a few degrees above absolute zero. This slowed the electrons between the two layers enough so that they formed the elusive material.

Exoplanet May Be Orbiting 3 Stars at Once

A bizarre feature in a distant star system might be caused by the first known planet that orbits three stars. GW Orionis is surrounded by a spiralling disc of gas and dust — typical for a young star system. But this disc is split into rings, and the outer ring is tilted at an angle. Detailed modelling of the system suggests that the best explanation is a giant gassy planet carving out its orbits in its first million years of existence.

Fossil of large penguin provides a new window into New Zealand’s long-lost past

In 2006, children from a junior naturalists’ club in New Zealand discovered the fossilised remains of a penguin the size of a ten-year-old child. Standing about 1.38 metres tall, the giant bird turns out to be a new species that was taller than other ancient giant penguins, as well as the tallest modern penguin, the 1.2-metre-tall emperor (Aptenodytes forsteri). Researchers named the species Kairuku waewaeroa; the second part of the name is Māori for ‘long legs’.

Ancient footprints could be oldest traces of humans in the Americas

Human footprints from an ancient lakeshore in what is now New Mexico seem to be between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. If the dating is accurate, the prints represent the earliest unequivocal evidence of human occupation anywhere in the Americas. The footprints contribute to ongoing debate about whether human settlers from Siberia skirted down the Pacific coast of the Americas or waited until ice-age glaciers retreated from inland routes.

Saudi Arabia camel carvings dated to neolithic period

Stunning reliefs of camels in a rock formation in Saudi Arabia are far older than was first thought: they were carved more than 7,000 years ago, when the climate of Arabian Peninsula was markedly cooler and wetter than it is today. The revised estimate means that the camels are probably the world’s oldest surviving large-scale animal reliefs. Ancient builders seem to have restored the reliefs time and again as the animal features eroded, and the monuments might have retained their form and function for millennia.

Extinction of Indigenous languages leads to loss of exclusive knowledge about medicinal plants

Threatened Indigenous languages convey unique knowledge of medicinal plants. Researchers analysed ethnobotanical datasets for North America, northwest Amazonia and New Guinea, which link more than 3,500 medicinal-plant species with 236 Indigenous languages. They found that 75% of the medicinal uses for these species are known in only one language. And those languages are the ones at greatest risk of being lost forever.

Single-cell proteomics takes centre stage

Most single-cell studies focus on nucleic acids, especially the transcriptome, which represents all the expressed genes in a cell. That’s about to change. Advances in instrumentation, analytical tools and sample preparation are allowing a closer look at the cell’s ‘worker bees’: the proteins.

New type of dark energy could solve Universe expansion mystery

A previously unknown, primordial form of dark energy could explain why the cosmos now seems to be expanding faster than theory predicts. This second type of dark energy — the ubiquitous but enigmatic substance that is pushing the current expansion of the Universe to accelerate — might have existed in the first 300,000 years after the Big Bang. If the findings are confirmed, they could help to solve a long-standing conundrum surrounding data about the early Universe, which seem to be incompatible with today’s measured rate of cosmic expansion.

Made-Up Sounds Convey Meaning across Cultures

Nonsense words can be recognisable to people around the world — and not just when they’re onomatopoeic. Researchers asked English-speaking people, mostly from the United States, to make up sounds to represent a wide range of concepts, including ‘sleep’, ‘tiger’, ‘many’ and ‘good’. These vocalisations were played for volunteers in 7 countries, who spoke a total of 28 languages, and had to guess the sounds’ meanings from a list of options. Across the board, people guessed the intended meanings at rates better than chance. The findings might hint at ‘iconic’ sounds that serve as the foundations for language.

Wave-particle duality quantified for the first time

One of quantum physics’s most bizarre and fundamental concepts — that quantum objects behave both as particles and as waves — has a new and more quantitative foundation. Researchers have reimagined the archetypal double-slit experiment, using lasers and lithium niobate crystals to create two photons with a single quantum state. One photon’s wave-like nature was quantified using the interference pattern it created in an interferometer. The other photon’s particle-like qualities were measured by observing its trajectory. What’s more, scientists were able to tweak the lasers to test how the source influenced a single quantum particle’s wave–particle duality. This revealed how the whole system — photons, sources and detectors — is linked by quantum entanglement.

Fossil DNA hints at mysterious Toalean Culture

The 7,000-year-old skeleton of a teenage hunter-gatherer from Sulawesi in Indonesia might be the first remains found from a mysterious, ancient culture known as the Toaleans. Sulawesi has some of the world’s oldest cave art, but ancient human remains have been scarce on the island. The largely complete fossil of a roughly 18-year-old Stone Age woman was found in 2015, buried in the fœtal position in a limestone cave. DNA extracted from the skull suggests that she shared ancestry with New Guineans and Aboriginal Australians, as well with the extinct Denisovan subspecies of ancient human. The Toalean people, known only from scant archæological evidence, such as distinctively notched stone tools, were thought to have lived in Sulawesi at around the same time.

Saturn might have a fluid, sloshy core

Saturn’s core might be a slushy mixture of ice and rock, rather than a compact solid made of mostly one or the other material, as is generally thought. The diffuse core extends to approximately 60% of the planet’s radius — much bigger than the 10–20% of a planet’s radius that would be occupied by the expected core. Researchers gleaned the surprising discovery by analysing gravitational perturbations in the planet’s rings caused by the oscillating core.

Pi calculated to the 62.8 trillionth digit

Researchers have broken a world record by calculating the mathematical constant pi to 62.8 trillion digits, beating the previous record of 50 trillion digits. The calculation took a supercomputer 108 days to complete. Researchers say the effort was an important benchmarking exercise for computational hardware and software.

Baby bats babble like human infants

Pups of the greater sac-winged bat develop their vocal skills by babbling in a similar way to human babies — a discovery that could help researchers to explore the underlying neuroscience of how mammals learn to communicate. Human infants babble to practise speech sounds, which require precise motor control over their voice boxes, research suggests. Young songbirds also babble, but there are very few other recorded examples of babbling behaviour among animals — the bat research is the first to identify baby babble produced by a mammal that isn’t a primate.

Cuttlefish Memory Abilities

Cuttlefish can remember what, when and where information about specific things that happened — right up to their final days. Researchers taught six older common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) that a seafood snack in their tanks changed location depending on the time of day. The old cuttlefish learnt to associate the time and location just as well as six young cuttlefish did.

Mammoth’s epic travels preserved in tusk

Researchers have reconstructed the detailed movements of a single woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) from one of its tusks. Every place on Earth has a distinct chemical signature based on geological differences. The ratios of various isotopes of elements, such as strontium and oxygen in the bedrock and water, create a unique profile specific to that location that remains consistent over millennia, and is incorporated into soil and plants. As mammoths grazed on the Arctic plains, these isotopic signatures were integrated into their ever-growing tusks, creating a permanent record of the animals’ whereabouts from birth to death, with almost daily resolution.

Exotic four-quark particle spotted at Large Hadron Collider

Scientists using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — which memorably revealed the Higgs boson in 2012 — have discovered a previously unknown exotic particle made of four quarks. The new ‘tetraquark’, Tcc+, is extremely unusual: most known hadrons, including protons and neutrons, are made of two or three quarks. This brings the LHC’s bounty of new hadrons — non-elementary particles that are made of quarks — up to 62.