Science

NASA’s Perseverance rover has captured a striking new image of massive, wind-carved sand formations known as “megaripples” during its latest exploration stop on the Red Planet. The photo, taken on Aug. 13, reveals a field of these ridges at a site called Kerrlaguna, where Perseverance is investigating how Martian winds continue to shape the landscape. According to a recent NASA …

Icebergs in Disko Bay (West Greenland) discharged by the Jakobshavn Isbrae, one of the fastest moving outlet glaciers in the world. Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has contributed nearly 2 cm (three quarters of an inch) to global sea-level rise over the past three decades. Credit: Torbjörn Törnqvist/Tulane University Satellites confirm that mid-1990s climate projections of sea-level rise …

Paralvinella hessleri accumulates microscopic particles of arsenic on its outer skin, which reacts with sulfide to form a microscopic armour of yellow orpiment.Credit: Wang et al./PLoS Biol (CC BY 4.0) A bright-yellow worm that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents is the first known animal to create orpiment, a brilliant but toxic mineral used by artists from antiquity until the nineteenth …

Researchers in Taiwan have observed sheet web spiders (Psechrus clavis) capturing fireflies and leaving them glowing in their webs for up to an hour. This unusual tactic turns the fireflies’ mating signals into a deadly lure, with other insects attracted to the light before becoming trapped themselves. Keen to find out more about the hunting strategy, scientists from Tunghai University devised a …

A gigantic crocodile-like hypercarnivore likely hunted dinosaurs 70 million years ago in what is now Argentina, a new study reveals. Researchers discovered the fossilized skeleton from the extinct apex predator in southern Patagonia in 2020. It grew up to around 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) long and weighed about 550 pounds (250 kilograms). The creature is named Kostensuchus atrox after the …

Rocky material that impacted Mars lies scattered in giant lumps throughout the planet’s mantle, offering clues about Mars’ interior and its ancient past. What appear to be fragments from the aftermath of massive impacts on Mars that occurred 4.5 billion years ago have been detected deep below the planet’s surface. The discovery was made thanks to NASA’s now-retired InSight lander, …

In the fall of 2024, somewhere near the headquarters of Brazil’s Environmental Military Police, an unending reverse-cascade of catfish began to climb the slippery rocks of the Sossego waterfall. The climbers were orange with thick black stripes, hence their nickname: bumblebee catfish. They had gathered in the thousands, their bodies latched onto the rocks and each other. Slowly and surely, …

Cosmic dust particles that give birth to planets around young stars have for the first time been found forming — the James Webb Space Telescope has witnessed the creation of these tiny planetary building blocks around a dead star. “This discovery is a big step forward in understanding how the basic materials of planets come together,” Mikako Matsuura of Cardiff …

Scientists in China have unveiled a supercomputer built on brain-like architecture — specifically, that of a monkey. Called Darwin Monkey or “Wukong”, the system features over 2 billion artificial neurons and more than 100 billion synapses, putting it roughly on par with the neural structure of a macaque. The researchers hope it will serve as a simulation tool for neuroscientists …

Topline Six planets will be visible in the morning sky before sunrise on Thursday, Aug. 28, but for probably the last time until 2028. Venus shines brightest in the east, flanked by Jupiter, with and Saturn in the south. Mercury clings low to the horizon, offering a final glimpse before it disappears into sunlight next week. Uranus and Neptune are …