Bread 30,000 Years Ago

Researchers have found starch grains on grinding stones estimated at 30,000 years old, indicating that Paleolithic Europeans ground starchy plant roots for flour that was made into simple breads 10,000 years earlier than previously known and contrary to the often assumed low-carbohydrate "caveman" diet.

"Walnut" Moon Mystery

New planetary models have shed light on the origin of the unusual "walnut" ridge formation of Saturn's moon Iapetus, with the moon in a region far enough from the planet to retain much of its initial rotational spin while still forming and producing the characteristic bulge along its equator.

Benford's Law

Researchers have extended the number of natural phenomena that are known to follow the curious mathematical rule known as Benford's law, demonstrating that it applies to such varied events as depth of earthquakes, brightness of gamma rays that reach Earth, rotation rates of pulsars and infectious disease numbers reported to the World Health Organization.

Asteroid Collision

The Hubble Space Telescope and the Rosetta probe currently en route to explore the asteroids have captured images of the recent explosive collision of two asteroids for the first time, with the event estimated to have occurred in early 2009.

Earliest Land Plants

Fossils of the earliest plants (liverworts) to have colonized dry land have been found in Argentina, pushing back this event by 10 million years to have the ancestor of all land plants growing on dry ground as early as 472 million years ago.

New Carnivorous Mammal

A new species of cat-sized, carnivorous mammal named Durell's vontsira (Salanoia durrelli) similar to a mongoose has been identified living in Madagascar, one of the most threatened carnivore species in the world and the first new species to be discovered in 24 years.

Strong-Handed Dinosaur

The discovery of a new fossil (Sarahsaurus aurifontanalis) in Arizona reveals a small sauropod with a long neck and an unusual clawed hand built for strength and leverage, leading paleontologists to believe they were opportunistic scavengers instead of strict herbivores.

New Language Found

A National Geographic team working to record threatened indigenous languages has discovered one entirely new to linguists in northeast India named Koro, belonging to the Tibeto-Burman family of languages, and spoken by only between 800 and 1200 people.

Earlier Dinosaur Origins

New research on small fossilized footprints found in Poland of a new proto-dinosaur dubbed Prorotodactylus reveal that the first dinosaurs appeared about two million years after the end-Permian extinction event, much earlier than previous estimates of 15-20 million years after this mass extinction.

Horror Fly Back from Dead

Once thought to be globally extinct and not sighted for almost 160 years, the bone skipper fly (Thyreophora cynophila) has been spotted in the forests of Central and Western Europe, where it lives and breeds in the bone tissue of highly decayed carrion.

Unpredictability of Heliosphere

Data from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) craft reveal the unpredictable boundary of the heliosphere where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium, shrinking significantly within six months and reacting apart from the Sun's eleven-year cycle of activity.

Neutral Atom Isolated

Researchers have successfully slowed a group of charge-neutral rubidium-85 atoms using laser cooling techniques and then selected out and held a single atom with a pair of optical tweezers to obtain an image, a breakthrough in handling atoms that could lead to smaller quantum-based computing.

"Artificial Leaf" Solar Devices

Researchers have developed water-gel-based solar devices ("artificial leaves") that mimick natural processes using plant chlorophyll, carbon nanotubes or graphite to generate electricity that is less expensive and more environmentally friendly than current silicon-based solar cell technologies.

Comet-Like Mercury

The two satellites of NASA's STEREO mission have visually captured a comet-like tail of gases escaping into the solar wind behind the planet Mercury opposite the Sun that is many hundreds of times the size of the planet itself.