The first known fossil remains of a baby snake have turned up in a hunk of amber found in Myanmar. The critter, a new species named Xiaophis myanmarensis, met its untimely demise about 99 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, an international team of researchers reports July 18 in Science Advances. How do we […]
Most people probably don’t think of beavers until one has chewed through the trunk of a favorite tree or dammed up a nearby creek and flooded a yard or nearby road. Beavers are pests, in this view, on par with other members of the order Rodentia. But a growing number of scientists and citizens are […]
The search for life on Mars just got a lot more interesting. For decades, scientists have looked at the dry and dusty planet and focused on finding regions where life could have taken root billions of years ago, when the Martian climate was warmer and wetter. But on July 25, researchers announced they had spotted […]
Curiouser and curiouser: Strange metals are getting a little stranger. Normal metals such as copper and aluminum are old hat — physicists have a strong grasp on the behavior of the electrons within. But strange metals behave in mysterious ways, and researchers have now uncovered an additional oddity. A type of strange metal called a […]
An astronomical calling card, tentatively attributed to mysterious dark matter, seems likely to be due to a more mundane source. An unexplained glow of high-energy light from the center of the Milky Way, first spotted in 2009, raised scientists’ hopes of better pinning down dark matter (SN: 11/20/10, p. 11). That unidentified substance has been […]
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is officially on its way to the sun. After a one-day delay, the probe took off into a dark, cloudy sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Delta IV Heavy rocket at 3:31 a.m. EDT on August 12. “Here we go,” said 91-year-old solar physicist Eugene Parker, the spacecraft’s namesake, as […]
MILWAUKEE — When it comes to the sex lives of animals, scientists have a slate of explicit terms to describe the proclivities of species. But researchers may be playing a little fast and loose with one of those words. Just what sort of activity qualifies an animal as promiscuous? A review of almost 350 studies […]
Antibodies in the brain can scramble nerve cells’ connections, leading to memory problems in mice. In the past decade, brain-attacking antibodies have been identified as culprits in certain neurological diseases. The details of how antibodies pull off this neuronal hit job, described online August 23 in Neuron, may ultimately lead to better ways to stop […]
A new type of lithium-oxygen battery could pack more energy and last longer than its predecessors. Lithium-oxygen batteries, which are more energy-dense and made of more sustainable materials than typical lithium-ion cells, are promising candidates for the next generation of rechargeable batteries (SN: 1/21/17, p. 22). But lithium-oxygen batteries aren’t widely used yet because they […]
Enteroviruses, including the ones that cause hand, foot and mouth disease, trigger outbreaks in predictable patterns. Some of these viruses, which can lead to everything from fevers, rashes and blisters to meningitis and heart infections, circulate every year or every two or three years. But it’s been unclear how foreseeable those patterns are. Now, based […]