Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected methane emission from CWISEP J193518.59-154620.3 (W1935 for short), an isolated brown dwarf with a temperature of approximately 482 K. Their findings also suggest that W1935 might generate aurorae similar to those seen on our own planet as well as on Jupiter and Saturn. An artist’s impression of the brown dwarf W1935....

Pluto’s surface is dominated by the huge, pear-shaped basin Sputnik Planitia. It appears to be of impact origin, but modeling has not yet explained its peculiar geometry. Planetary scientists at the University of Bern propose an impact mechanism that reproduces the basin’s topographic shape while also explaining its alignment near the Pluto-Charon axis. According to their research, Pluto’s...

New archaeological excavations have revealed repeated phases of human occupation of Umm Jirsan lava tube in the Harrat Khaybar, north-western Saudi Arabia, ranging from at least the Neolithic through to the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age (10,000-3,500 years ago). Photographs of Umm Jirsan Cave and its interior sections. Image credit: Stewart et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299292. Intensified field research...

The three new species belong to the extinct kangaroo genus Protemnodon, which were common members of Cenozoic communities across Australia and New Guinea until their extinction in the Late Pleistocene. An artist’s impression of the newly-described fossil species Protemnodon viator and its relative Protemnodon anak, compared at scale to the living red kangaroo and eastern gray kangaroo. Image credit:...

Tardigrades can survive remarkable doses of ionizing radiation, up to about 1,000 times the lethal dose for humans. How they do so is incompletely understood. In a new study, scientists from the University of North Carolina found that a tardigrade species called Hypsibius exemplaris suffers DNA damage upon gamma irradiation, but the damage is repaired. The study shows that this species has a specific...

Physicists from the CMS Collaboration at CERN have just publicly released the combination of CMS measurements that contributed to establishing the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. CMS event display of a candidate Higgs boson decaying into two photons, one of the two decay channels that were key to the discovery of the particle. Image credit: CERN. “Physics measurements based on data from CERN’s...

According to several international, regional, and national guidelines on high blood pressure, or hypertension, lifestyle interventions are the first-line treatment to lower blood pressure. Although diet is one of the major lifestyle modifications described in hypertension guidelines, dietary fiber is not specified. Suboptimal intake of foods high in fiber, such as in Westernized diets, is a major...

An international team of scientists has generated the highest quality reference genome to date of the world’s most popular coffee species, Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica). Their results suggest that this species developed more than 600,000 years ago in the forests of Ethiopia via natural mating between two other coffee species: Coffea eugenioides and Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). Coffea arabica....

Using data from ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, planetary scientists have created the 1:30000 scale geological map of Oxia Planum, the landing site for ESA’s ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission. Fawdon et al. created the most detailed geologic map of Oxia Planum, the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. Image credit: Fawdon et...

Conventionally, climate is held responsible for the emergence and extinction of hominin species. In most vertebrates, however, interspecies competition is known to play an important role. New research shows for the first time that competition was fundamental to speciation — the rate at which new species emerge — across 5 million years of hominin evolution. It also suggests that the species...