Science

“We just couldn’t believe how weird it was and how unlike any other dinosaur, or indeed any other animal we know of, alive or extinct,” said Richard Butler, project co-lead and a paleontologist at the University of Birmingham in England. The chance to see and study the Spicomellus fossils was “spine-tingling,” said Butler. It wasn’t just those involved in the …

Competing interests M.J.F. has served as a paid consultant with Minovia Therapeutics (last in 2021) and Imel Therapeutics (last in 2022), and has served as a preclinical stage research collaborator with Minovia Therapeutics (last in 2022) and Imel Therapeutics (last in 2022). M.J.F is also engaged with biopharma companies involved in mitochondrial disease therapeutic preclinical and/or clinical-stage development, including as …

Rust, N. C. Our memory is even better than experts thought. Sci. Am. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-memory-is-even-better-than-experts-thought/ (2021). Sutton, R. S. & Barto, A. G. Reinforcement Learning (MIT Press, 2018). Bellman equation. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellman_equation. Jaegle, A., Mehrpour, V. & Rust, N. Visual novelty, curiosity, and intrinsic reward in machine learning and the brain. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 58, 167–174 (2019). CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar  …

Emma Maria Mazzenga is an elite sprinter, and at 92, has few competitors. (Claudia Gori/For The Washington Post) Emma Maria Mazzenga has been outrunning expectations for decades. At 92, she is not only competing in track races but also breaking records in her age group. In 2023, she twice smashed the outdoor 200-meter world record for women over 90, racing …

“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.” Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: In 2015, a paleoanthropology team discovered jaw remains of a roughly 42,000-year-old Neanderthal in France. Over the next several years, the team, led by Ludovic Slimak, found more of the Neanderthal’s remains and began to analyze …

It’s a technology that doesn’t even exist yet, but its effects could be so drastically destructive that scientists in the field are calling for it to be banned now, before it’s too late. We’re talking, of course, about “mirror life” — synthetic organisms that quite literally turn natural biology on its head. “We should choose not to build mirror life and …

IN A NUTSHELL 🌍 Researchers use supercomputers to simulate and predict earthquake dynamics with unprecedented detail. 🏢 The EQSIM project highlights how geological conditions can amplify or dampen seismic waves. 💡 Smaller earthquakes can cause more damage than larger ones due to specific geological factors. 🔍 Simulations provide critical data to enhance infrastructure resilience and disaster preparedness. In a groundbreaking …

Phylogenetic framework and HMMs of sulfur-cycling proteins To discern sulfur-cycling genes or proteins from their functionally divergent homologues, phylogenetic analysis was conducted for 116 sulfur-cycling proteins (Supplementary Table 1). For each protein family, sequences of enzymes with biochemically validated functions, including related sequences of enzymes with divergent functions (outgroups), were identified by literature surveys and recovered from SwissProt61. Additional homologues …

In some cases, to learn more about our solar system, all we have to do is look at evidence found on Earth. Researchers from Japan’s Nagoya University and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) have determined how mysterious molten “raindrops” in meteorites formed — and used that information to date Jupiter’s formation. The raindrops are called chondrules. They’re strange …

With shiny new next-generation spacecraft come the complex systems required to track their technologically advanced systems. When it comes to NASA’s Orion spacecraft, that need is a whole extra room of monitors. NASA has opened a new complex in the Mission Control Center at its Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston ahead of the Artemis 2 mission to send astronauts …