Unique New Frog Species

A new brightly colored frog (Raorchestes resplendens) has been identified as a new species living in the Eravaikulam National Park in southern India, unique in that it shares many physical qualities as toads and inhabits a total range of less than 3 square kilometers.

Chemistry of Bird Ancestor

Using the bright x-ray beam of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, a team of scientists have decoded portions of the original chemistry of the fossilized Archaeopteryx, revealing similar chemical compositions between this feathered dinosaur and modern birds and thereby strengthening their evolutionary link.

Laser Mapping Ancient Cities

Ancient archaeological sites that previously took decades to painstakingly record can now be mapped with extreme precision in only a matter of days using lidar (light detection and ranging) technology and a low-flying aircraft, even despite thick jungle cover.

Neanderthal Genes in Humans

The latest sequencing of the Neanderthal genome reveals that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans (Homo sapiens) and contributed between 1% and 4% of the modern non-African genome, although this had almost no influence on our species' development.

Star Formation Slowing

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel telescope has revealed that the rate of galactic star formation has declined by as much as five-fold during the past three billion years.

Tetrahedral Dice Packing

Experiments with dice of various numbers of sides and shapes reveal that tetrahedral (four-sided) dice yield the greatest packing factor of all shapes tested, filling roughly 76% of available space and packing more efficiently than even spheres (64%).

Pressurized Mayan Water

An ancient Mayan water feature found in the city of Palenque, Mexico, is the first example of a pressurized water system found in the New World, dating from the first few centuries A.D.

Prehistoric Magnetic Field

Analysis of rocks from South Africa has revealed a record of Earth's magnetic field some 3.45 billion years ago captured in tiny iron minerals, pushing back the earliest known presence of a magnetic field by about 250 million years.

Spinning Atoms Imaged

Physicists have manipulated and created the first images of the spin of electrons when positioning individual cobalt atoms on a manganese surface through the use of a scanning tunneling microscope.

Quark Masses Calculated

Researchers at Cornell University have calculated the masses of the three lightest quarks (up, down and strange) with unprecedented accuracy, reducing the margin of error down to only a few percent and providing insights into the strong atomic force.

Ocean Bacteria Photoproteins

Researchers have discovered many marine bacteria possess a light-sensitive pigment called proteorhodopsin, allowing them to carry out photosynthesis similar to land-based plants and marine phytoplankton during periods of starvation.

Mammoth Blood Protein

Researchers have resequenced blood proteins from the DNA extinct mammoths tens of thousands of years old, preserved in the Siberian permafrost, to reveal a genetic mutation allowing their hemoglobin to carry oxygen in their blood even at low temperatures.

Pokeberries Enhance Solar Cells

Red dye made from the widespread fruit-bearing weed known as pokeberries have been used to enhance fiber-based solar cells, with the dark dye acting as an inexpensive absorber of photonic energy that boosts output to almost twice that of current flat-cell technology.

New Pterosaur Discovered

A jawbone discovered outside of Dallas, Texas, by an amateur fossil hunter has been identified as a new species of needle-toothed pterosaur (Aetodactylus halli), only the second such ornithoceirid specimen ever found in North America.