Tool Use in Fish

A study of blackspot tuskfish off the coast of Australia has documented the fish bashing a cockle against a rock to get at the fleshy bits inside, the first evidence of tool use among fish in the wild.

Tsunami Airglow Signature

Using a ground-based camera, researchers detected a distinct airglow signature 250 km above Earth's surface that preceded the March 11th earthquake and subsequent tsunami near Japan by about an hour, suggesting a new method for an early warning system.

Last Dinosaur Discovered

The fossil remains of a ceratopsian (likely a Triceratops) found in Montana buried just five inches below the K-T boundary indicate dinosaur species existed up to the point of the mass extinction 65 million years ago, and that the lack of fossil evidence within the so-called anomalous "three-meter gap" may not exist at all.

Antarctic Subsea Volcanoes

A string of a dozen underwater volcanoes has been discovered in the Antarctic seas south of the South Sandwich Islands, many of them still active and some as tall as 10,000 feet above the ocean floor.

Comet's Death Photographed

For the first time in astronomical history, both the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured the disintegration of a "sun-grazer" comet over a 15-minute period as it plunged into the Sun.

Viking Tooth Modification

Viking graves in Denmark, Sweden and England have revealed a 10th-century cultural tradition of tooth modification among Viking warriors with neat horizontal lines filed into two or more front teeth.

Tomb Filled with Human Bones

A newly discovered 5000-year-old tomb in northern Scotland, dubbed "Tomb of the Otters," contains thousands of human bones and is one of the best preserved Neolithic sites discovered there in decades.

Capturing Ambient Energy

Engineers have developed technology to collect energy from ambient electromagnetic broadcasts such as radio and television, wireless communication networks and satellite transmissions and use that energy to power small electronic devices.

First Synthetic Windpipe

Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the first synthetic organ transplant, growing a new windpipe from a patient's own stem cells over an organic scaffolding and successfully implanting it into a 36-year-old man.

Ancient Mantle Plume

Evidence found in the African and Indian tectonic plates indicates a mantle plume originating about 67 million years ago propelled the Indian plate toward Asia for about 5 million years while at the same time slowing the motion of the African plate significantly.

Hydrogen Peroxide in Space

The APEX telescope in Chile has detected molecules of hydrogen peroxide in space for the first time around the Rho Ophiuchi star formation, a key compound linked to two other molecules of life, oxygen and water.

Meat-Farming Ants

Entomologists studying the Melissotarsus ants of Africa and Madagascar believe they raise the smaller armored scale insects within their own burrows as a direct food source, the first example of pure animal husbandry in the animal kingdom.

Screw and Nut in Nature

Entomologists studying weevil families of Papua New Guinea (Trigonopterus oblongus) have shown that weevil legs attach to their body and are moved via a screw and nut mechanism no different than the ridges on the industrial connectors.

Neptune's Rotation Determined

Planetary scientists have accurately determined the rotational speed of Neptune for the first time, discovering one of the greatest improvements in measuring this planetary attribute of gas giants in over 350 years.