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.