Fossil hints at colourful pterosaur feathers

A remarkable fossil reveals that pterosaurs might have been covered in brightly coloured feathers. The exquisitely preserved Tupandactylus imperator shows the soft tissues of the animal’s crest and filament structures that suggest that it had true feathers. The fossil also preserves melanosomes: tiny organelles that contain melanin and cause much of the colouring in features and skin. Researchers found different types of melanosome, suggesting that it sported various colours — and that its feathers weren’t just to keep it warm.

Blind cave fish have regional accents

In the underground caves of north-eastern Mexico, groups of blind fish that communicate using clicks seem to be developing cave-specific accents. Researchers studying the Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus) analysed hours of fish chatter in six caves spread across the three mountain ranges. They noticed significant differences: clicks were relatively high-pitched in one cave, and deep and booming in another, for example. The linguistic split could eventually contribute to ongoing speciation among the fish.

Simulation hints at how climate shaped human migration

A record-breaking simulation of the past two million years of Earth’s climate provides evidence that temperature and other planetary conditions influenced early human migration — and possibly contributed to the emergence of the modern-day human species around 300,000 years ago.

An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014

Declassified US government data confirm that a small meteorite that blazed through the skies over Papua New Guinea in 2014 came from far beyond our Solar System. In 2019, researchers argued that the object’s high speed and trajectory suggested that it originated from another star system. But the study was never peer-reviewed because the data needed to verify the calculations were classified. The confirmation by US government officials makes the meteorite the first interstellar object to be detected in our Solar System, spurring scientists to consider a search for shards of the object that might have settled on the sea floor.

W boson’s surprise mass threatens to upend the standard model

Physicists analysing data from a long-defunct experiment have found that the W boson — a fundamental particle that carries the weak nuclear force — is notably heavier than theory predicts. Although the difference between the theoretical prediction and experimental value is only 0.09%, it is significantly larger than the result’s error margins, which are less than 0.01%. The finding also disagrees with some other measurements of the mass. If it is confirmed by other experiments, it could be the first major breach in the standard model of particle physics, a theory that has been spectacularly successful since it was introduced in the 1970s.

Can mushrooms ‘speak’?

Researchers who tapped into the network that connects fungi say that its patterns of electrical signals resemble human speech. Previous studies have suggested that fungi use electrical signals to communicate and process information across tiny connective threads called mycelium. In the new study, researchers inserted tiny electrodes into substrates colonised by four species of fungi. They found that spikes of electrical activity often clustered into groups that resembled vocabularies of up to 50 words and could be similar to human language. But some researchers are sceptical.

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Although this is unlikely to be evidence of a semiotic system, let alone a language, it may well be a precursor to semiotic systems, where what is exchanged is social value, rather than symbolic value. Such systems, previously thought to be exclusive to animals, have more recently been identified in some plants.

Mystery warriors made the fastest migration in ancient history

Around 1,500 years ago, horse-riding warriors known as the Avars appeared in southeastern Europe seemingly out of nowhere and established an empire lasting more than 200 years. Now, DNA evidence suggests that they crossed a continent in the span of a decade or two. Human remains from Avar tombs in what is now Hungary closely match those from an individual buried just a few decades earlier in what is now eastern Mongolia — almost 7,000 kilometres away.

Scientists classify manatee vocalisations

Researchers listened to seven years of manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) chat to learn how the gentle, solitary grazers communicate. Almost all of the creatures’ vocalisations fall into three categories: a high squeak used between mother and calf, a lower squeak that indicated stress and a squeal recorded during “cavorting” and “frisky behaviour”.