Black Hole Birth

Astronomers have analyzed images captured by NASA's Chandra x-ray telescope of a 1979 supernova explosion and found something steadily consuming the gas renmants of the star in the decades since, possibly the first direct observations of the birth of a black hole.

Pocahontas' Wedding Chapel

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a church at the historic Jamestown settlement site in Virginia that is believed to be the chapel where the Powhatan girl Pocahontas married John Rolfe in the spring of 1614, the first major English church building in North America.

"Racetrack" Memory

A new type of high-volume, shock-proof, non-volatile "racetrack" magnetic memory has been developed using billions of nickel-iron nanowires embedded on a chip that could make standard computer memory 100,000 times faster.

Oldest Dinosaur Embryos

The oldest known preserved embryos from fossilized eggs disovered in South Africa in 1976 have been identified as Massospondylus, an early prosauropod species that reveals details about early development and evolution at the dawn of the age of dinosaurs 190 million years ago.

Moon Bulge Explained

The lunar far-side highlands, an area of elevated topography located on the far side of the Moon, has been explained using a mathematical model as the result of tidal forces early in its formation acting on a solid outer crust floating on an internal layer of magma.

Gamma-Ray Structures

NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has detected large gamma-ray structures bubbling 25,000 light years both above and below the Milky Way's galactic center, with theories as to their origin ranging from remnants of ancient star formation to activity from the central black hole at the core.

Spontaneous GMOs

Although genetically modified organisms (GMO) are the subject of fierce moral and political debate, a new study demonstrates that a transfer on the genetic level can occur naturally among plant species, most likely borne by a virus or other parasite some 700,000 years ago.

Pompeiians Killed by Heat

A new study and simulation reveals that the Pomepeiian victims of Mount Vesuvius were killed by one of six pyroclastic surges of hot gases and ash that swept over the area, and likely died instantly of heat shock from temperatures in excess of 300°C instead of asphyxiation, as previously believed.

Boas by Virgin Birth

A boa constrictor has had two litters of 22 offspring with no father, an exceedingly rare case of parthenogenesis in vertebrate species and with the young snakes having sex-determining WW chromosomal pairs, a genetic combination not found in nature.

"Exotic" Metallic Superconductor

A new "dual-identity" crystalline material known as a topological superconductor has been developed that at very low temperatures displays the zero resistance of superconductors on the interior while behaving with conventional metallic conductive properties on the surface.

Fourth Neutrino Flavor

Results obtained by Fermilab's Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE) suggest the existence of a previously unanticipated fourth flavor of neutrino, a weakly interacting new particle in addition to the three known electron, muon and tau neutrinos.

Walls Around Sphinx

New excavations around the Great Sphinx of Giza have revealed ancient mud walls approximately 1 meter high built around the Sphinx to protect it from blowing sand, presumably built by the ancient King Thutmose IV.

"Balloon Head" Dolphin

A fossil skull dredged up from the floor of the North Sea by a Dutch fisherman reveals a new species of "balloon head" dolphin (Platalearostrum hoekmani) that lived two to three million years ago, with the function of the bulbous forehead a matter of speculation.

Human Liver in Lab

Whole miniature human livers about the size of plums have been grown in a laboratory environment from biological scaffolding of ferret livers stripped of native cells and replaced by human liver cells, a large step forward toward the goal of growing full-sized, personalized replacement livers for transplant patients.