Radar shows mirror-smooth sea on Saturn moon

The radar readings, taken last year, show the surface of Ligeia Mare, Ti­tan’s second largest sea.

Saturn may be spawning tiny new moon

Astronomers suspect the object may be going through stages that characterised the birth of other moons, and planets.

Big, unseen planet may inhabit outer Solar System

A dwarf planet just found far outside the known Solar System also hints that a far bigger one lurks.

Possible exomoon detected

Though unconfirmable, the finding is seen as a tantalising first step toward finding exomoons.

First Earth-sized planet in a 'habitable zone'

In a long-awaited first, astronomers report finding an Earth-sized exoplanet possibly able to support life.

Odour memory

Long-term, odour-memory formation in the brain is linked to smell perception by affecting the expression of olfactory receptors in the nose.

Sea fossil has oldest cardiovascular system

Scientists claim to have found a fossil of a shrimp-like creature that lived 520 million years ago with an exquisitely preserved heart and blood vessels that represent the oldest-known cardiovascular system. Named Fuxianhuia protensa, the creature was a primitive arthropod, a group of invertebrates with external skeletons that includes crustaceans like crabs, lobsters and shrimp as well as insects, spiders and millipedes.

Ocean found on Saturnian moon

An ocean of liquid water exists below the frozen surface of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, according to new data from the Cassini spacecraft.

Researchers believe the water is in contact with a rocky floor below, making it more suitable for a hypothetical origin of life.

Elephants console those in distress

Asian elephants console other elephants who are in distress, using physical touches and vocalisations.

Bees demonstrate 'top down' attention

Bees playing video games show they actively choose what they want to pay attention to in a similar way to humans, rather than simply reacting to external stimuli.

Europeans have evolved lighter skin in past 5,000 years

Europeans have evolved lighter skin, eyes and hair in past 5,000 years.  The skin changes may be a result of the body’s need to produce more Vitamin D in lower-sunlight areas, although the other changes are harder to explain.

Gravitational waves from cosmic inflation detected

Astronomers say they have detected “ripples” in space and time caused by a process in which our universe expand­ed out of control during its first fleet­ing fraction of a second.

Scientists found and measured a key polarisation, or orientation, of the microwaves caused by gravitational waves, which are miniature ripples in the fabric of space.

Laser singles out an atom

Ultraviolet laser light has been used to pick apart a diamond atom by atom, a breakthrough that has implications for the development of quantum computers and other areas of diamond technologies.

Tiny tweezers made from bowtie of light

Researchers have built the world's smallest tweezers, capable of picking up a single virus or molecule.

'Life as we know it' unlikely on super Earths

For a rocky planet to be habitable it must be no bigger than Earth or its crushing atmosphere will be deadly to life.  The findings have dashed hopes that life as we know it can exist on super Earths — planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.  The gravity of super Earths causes the planets to have thick, crushing hydrogen atmospheres.

Songbirds give clues to babies' babble

Singing zebra finches could one day shed light on how some babies learn to talk faster and more accurately than others.

Pulsar rocked by billion-tonne asteroid

A pulsar 37,000 light-years away has been hit by a billion-tonne asteroid.  Astronomers made the discovery while studying the dusty, high-radiation environment surrounding the tiny spinning husk of the pulsar PSR J0738-4042.

Star-rich galaxy found from universe's early years

Astronomers have found an old and distant galaxy that is believed to date back to a time when the universe was just 650 million years old, a fraction of its current age.  The galaxy, known as Abell 2744_Y1, is about 30 times smaller than the Milky Way, but pumping out stars at a prodigious rate.

Prehistoric carnivore had 'steak knife' teeth

Before dinosaurs walked the Earth, Dimetrodon lived at what are now the southwestern United States and parts of Europe between 298 million and 272 million years ago.

Brown dwarf weather map

The first weather map of an unusual type of star called a brown dwarf has revealed a world where it rains molten iron. A brown dwarf is a low-temperature star that has failed to accumulate enough mass to reach the core temperatures and pressures needed to ignite. Some astronomers suggest brown dwarfs bridge the gap between the largest planets and the smallest stars.

Prairie dogs may do version of “the wave” as alertness test

Black-tailed prairie dogs use a “jumping display” that spreads through their community to test how alert their neighbours are for predators.

How Mars lost its fresh water

The surface of Mars once flowed with water fresh enough to sustain life, according to data collected by two of NASA's Martian rovers. The findings suggest freshwater rivers and streams once existed in the Meridiani Plains region near the Martian equator, 3.8 billion years ago. But all that changed when a huge asteroid impact turned the fresh water into a highly acidic soup.

Astronomers 'see' strands of cosmic web

Astronomers say they have for the first time seen the gas strands theorised to hold the universe together in a "cosmic web". Cosmologists believe that matter between galaxies is distributed in a network of strands known as the cosmic web. The vast majority of atoms in the universe are thought to reside in this web as hydrogen left over from the Big Bang, and galaxies are believed to form at network nodes. Until now, this web had never been seen. Small sections of it had been detected by its absorption of light from bright background sources, but those results didn't reveal its overall structure.

Fossil fish re-defines origins of walking

Fossils of a creature that looked part-fish and part-limbed animal, Tiktaalik roseae, the precursor to walking land animals, represents the best-known transitional species between fish and land-dwelling animals.

Scientists get Pre-RNA molecule to self-assemble

Chemists have found a way to make a pre-RNA molecule assemble itself in a pond-like setting — potentially suggesting a key step in how life originated. Pre-RNA is hypothesised to have eventually evolved via RNA in­to DNA.

“Impossibly” large stellar explosions identified

A newly identified type of stellar explosion breaks all the old rules — and records — for such explosions. The “superluminous” outbursts have been coming to scientists’ attention since the end of the last decade, but no one knew what they were at first. The new study proposes that the blasts are probably associated with the formation of a magnetar, an extraordinarily magnetized, dizzyingly fast-spinning neutron star.

Inbreeding Neanderthals Interbred with Denisovans

DNA sequencing of an ancient toe has revealed long-term inbreeding amongst a Siberian-based Neanderthal population.  The sequencing results also reveal Neanderthals, and a sister group, Denisovans, met and reproduced in the Late Pleistocene between 12,000 and 126,000 years ago.

Scientists discover second, secret DNA code

Scientists have now discovered a second DNA code that suggests the body uses the same alphabet to speak two different languages.  The newfound genetic code was written right on top of the DNA code scientists had already cracked. Rather than concerning itself with proteins, this one instructs the cells on how genes are controlled.

First documented tool use by reptiles

Though the use of objects as hunting lures is very rare in nature, a study says at least two species of crocodiles and alligators use twigs and sticks to lure birds.

Scientists decode oldest DNA of extinct human

Researchers say they have decoded a key part of the DNA for a 400,000-year-old extinct human related to a species of ancestral humans called Denisovans.

Colours help chameleons avoid conflict

Male chameleons use bright and fast-changing colours to give opponents a two-stage warning against fighting them for territory or females.

3,000 year old wine cellar found

Archaeologists have unearthed what they say may be the oldest and largest wine cellar in the Near East, containing 40 jars. Each would have held 50 litres of strong, sweet wine — wine flavoured with mint, honey and a dash of psychotropic resins.

Scientists identify brain area integral to bird intelligence

A brain region known as the nidopallium caudolaterale may be responsible for some of birds’ strategic, intelligent behaviour.

Strong evidence of jet at Milky Way centre

Astronomers have found strong evidence that the huge black hole at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy is shooting out a jet of high-energy particles.

Find said to confirm time of Buddha’s life

Archaeologists say they have dug up evidence of a sixth-century-B.C. structure at the Buddha’s birthplace — the first archaeological material linking his life to a specific century.

Neanderthal living space

Neanderthals organized their living spaces in ways that today’s people would recognize as familiar, scientists say. The finding suggests new similarities between modern humans and Neanderthals, our close evolutionary cousins who died out an estimated 30,000 years ago.

New species of giant clam identified

A colourful new species of giant clam, thought to have been another well-known species, has been discovered on reefs in Western Australia and the Solomon Islands.

Environmental factors found to alter gene expression

Lab mice trained to fear a particular smell can transfer the impulse to their unborn sons and grandsons through a mechanism in their sperm, a study reveals.  The research claims to provide evidence for the concept of animals "inheriting" a memory of their ancestors' traumas, and responding as if they had lived the events themselves.  It is the latest find in the study of epigenetics, in which environmental factors are said to cause genes to start behaving differently without any change to their underlying DNA encoding.

See also

Learn­ed experiences can be transferred through genetic structures — not by changes to genes themselves, but rather, to how they’re “marked” by other molecules.

Chasmosaurus: a horned, plant-eating a relative of Triceratops

A newly unearthed fossil of a baby dinosaur is so complete that it appears to hop out of the rock in which it was entombed. The dinosaur is now believed to be among the best preserved dinosaurs in the world and it is the first known baby Chasmosaurus belli fossil.

Invading mantid lures natives to their deaths

Native male New Zealand praying mantises are lured to their death by the irresistible scent of invading females.  The native males are more attracted to the invading South African species than they are to females of their own kind.

Fossilised sap points to low oxygen past

Amber may not preserve ancient DNA, but a new study has shown it can provide insights into the composition of the atmosphere.  The results suggest dinosaurs inhaled air with far less oxygen than we breathe today and may cause a rethink into how they became so big.

“Freakish” asteroid

Astronomers have found a “weird and freakish object” resembling a spinning lawn sprinkler in the asteroid belt.  Normal asteroids appear simply as tiny points of light. This bizarre one has six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel.

Dogs descended from European wolves

A new comparison of DNA from modern canines and ancient fossils suggests that today's pets are descended from now-extinct populations of wolves in Europe.

T. rex's oldest known cousin: Lythronax argestes

A new species of tyrannosaur has been unearthed in Utah, with skull bones showing an 80 million-year-old beast that is the oldest known cousin of the legendary T. rex. The meat-eating Lythronax argestes, which means "king of gore," had wide-set eyes that helped it track prey and a load of teeth packed into a more slender snout than T. rex.

Penguin split more recent than thought

Today's penguin species, from the massive emperor penguin through to the tiny blue penguin, all originated from an ancestor that lived just 20 million years ago.

Kraken theory resurfaces with new 'evidence'

A recent fossil find is renewing interest in the search for the ancient giant cephalopod known as the kraken.

Giant toothed platypus roamed Australia

A giant platypus with powerful teeth roamed the rivers of northern Australia between 5 and 15 million years ago.  Dubbed 'Platypus Godzilla', the creature was twice the size of a modern platypus and had teeth to chew crayfish, frogs and small turtles.  Palaeontologists say the fossil is forcing a re-think about the evolution of the species, and warn it could indicate the smaller modern platypus is on track to extinction.

Bees avoid hard choices to cut their losses

When the bees were given the choice of opting out, they did so more often when the task got harder, and their performance at these more difficult tasks improved.  Similar experiments have found that dogs, dolphins and rats all do this.

Com­mon an­ces­tor of mod­ern hu­ma­ns and Ne­an­der­thals still unknown

None of the creatures usually proposed as a common ancestor is a good match. These human forms include fossils dubbed Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus and Homo antecessor.  The lines that led to Neanderthals and modern humans branched apart nearly a million years ago, much earlier than studies based on molecular evidence have suggested.

Meerkat females rewarded for killing rivals’ pups

Meerkat females at the top of their group’s pecking order will kill rivals’ babies and go on to receive wet nurse services from the victimized mothers. The same service is sometimes extracted from recently “exiled” meerkats who have returned, suggesting it’s a sort of “rent” paid to stay in the community.

Marmoset monkeys chat politely

Humans aren’t the only species that knows how to carry on polite conversation. Marmoset monkeys, too, will engage one another for up to 30 minutes at a time in vocal turn-taking.

Elephants understand human pointing

Elephants spontaneously get the gist of human pointing and can use it as a cue for finding food. That’s all the more impressive given that many great apes don’t understand human caretakers’ pointing gestures.

Findings could simplify human lineage

Several ancestral forms of humans were really one species, not separate ones as previously thought, according to new research. These earliest members of the Homo genus included the species Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo erectus. The findings are based on an analysis of a complete skull of a hominid, or human-like creature, from Dmanisi, Georgia, dated to about 1.8 million years ago.

“Free-floating planet” photographed for first time

Astronomers say they’ve photographed a free-floating planet, a type of body theorised for years to exist but never imaged directly. But other new findings are also blurring the boundaries between such planets, and stars.

Kep­ler-78b

Kepler-78b is a planet that shouldn’t exist: this scorching lava world, scientists say, circles its star every 8½ hours at a distance of less than a million miles — one of the tightest known orbits. According to current theories of planet formation, it could­n’t have formed so close to its star, nor could it have moved there.