/ en-us Â鶹ŇůÔş internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ŇůÔşics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Black mambas (Dendroaspis polylepis) are Africa's longest, most famous venomous snakes. Despite their fearsome reputation, these misunderstood snakes are vital players in their ecosystems. They keep rodent populations in check and, in turn, help to protect crops and limit disease spread. The species ranges widely across sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to Somalia and south into South Africa. They can adapt to many environments. /news/2025-10-toxic-pollution-snake-scales-black.html Environment Sat, 11 Oct 2025 11:30:01 EDT news678968603 Research led by VladimĂ­r Sládek sheds new light on how bones age, questioning long-standing assumptions that sedentary lifestyles are the primary cause of weakening bone strength in modern humans. /news/2025-10-holocene-skeletal-samples-link-sedentary.html Other Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 10 Oct 2025 13:43:22 EDT news679322596 Hippos, today restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, survived in central Europe far longer than previously assumed. Analyses of bone finds demonstrate that hippos inhabited the Upper Rhine Graben sometime between approximately 47,000 and 31,000 years ago, well into the last ice age. An international research team led by the University of Potsdam and the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim with the Curt-Engelhorn-Zentrum Archäometrie have now published a study on this in the journal Current Biology. /news/2025-10-hippos-survived-europe-ice-age.html Plants & Animals Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 10 Oct 2025 11:35:04 EDT news679314902 A near-complete skeleton found on the UK's Jurassic Coast has been identified as a new and rare species of ichthyosaur—a type of prehistoric marine reptile that once ruled the ancient oceans. /news/2025-10-rare-jurassic-sword-dragon-prehistoric.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 10 Oct 2025 08:50:04 EDT news679305002 In the journal Childhood in the Past, Ph.D. candidate Duru YaÄźmur BaĹźaran published the results of an analysis of an over 900-year-old skeleton of a child. The study revealed that a 2.5 to 3.5-year-old child had suffered from a rare disease seldom seen in archaeology. /news/2025-10-rare-disease-possibly-12th-century.html Archaeology Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:10:01 EDT news679223752 Stress granules are droplet-like protein hubs that temporarily shield fragile RNA from cellular stresses such as toxins. VCP is a protein essential for breaking up stress granules and has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases. However, VCP has a protein partner, ASPL, whose role has been unclear until now. /news/2025-10-protein-sidekick-dual-roles-stress.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:56:03 EDT news679157761 During warmer periods of the Middle Pleistocene, ancient humans in Italy were in the habit of butchering elephants for meat and raw materials, according to a study published October 8, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Beniamino Mecozzi of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy and colleagues. /news/2025-10-early-humans-butchered-elephants-small.html Archaeology Wed, 08 Oct 2025 14:00:09 EDT news679070161 A pioneering liquid metal combination is shaping up as a potential secret weapon in the global fight against antimicrobial resistance, and promises to outlast existing implant materials. /news/2025-10-orthopedic-implants-aim-longer-liquid.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Wed, 08 Oct 2025 11:17:03 EDT news679141021 Some colorful lizards and a mathematical formula from the finance sector have been used to build a new framework to model evolution. /news/2025-10-lizard-genetics-perspective-evolution.html Evolution Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 08 Oct 2025 04:00:01 EDT news679071461 Sometimes, the best way to achieve a big outcome is to start small. That principle is at the center of new work from a University of Virginia researcher who specializes in nanotechnology and controlled delivery of medical treatments. /news/2025-10-polymer-scaffold-tissue-multiple-vaccine.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 07 Oct 2025 11:51:04 EDT news679056661 A study published in Science Advances about centuries-old horse and donkey bones, unearthed in Jamestown, Virginia, is rewriting the story of how these animals first arrived in North America. /news/2025-10-jamestown-colonists-brought-donkeys-horses.html Archaeology Social Sciences Tue, 07 Oct 2025 10:00:05 EDT news679048025 Even as autumn days grow shorter, a warming climate means Ohio winters aren't as cold as they were just a few decades ago, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. This increasing mismatch between hours of daylight and temperature could spell trouble for animals that thrive by relying on seasonal cues to prepare their bodies for winter, according to new research from Case Western Reserve University. /news/2025-10-climate-ecological-species.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 07 Oct 2025 09:44:04 EDT news679049041 In a study published in the International Journal of Paleopathology, Dr. Victoria Romano and her colleagues analyzed the bones of 189 hunter-gatherers who lived during the Late Holocene (~4000 to 250 BP) in Patagonia. /news/2025-10-ancient-patagonian-hunter-disabled.html Archaeology Tue, 07 Oct 2025 07:30:01 EDT news678963258 A Michigan pet treat company is recalling some bags of dog chews after they were found to be contaminated with Salmonella, which can sicken both pets and people. /news/2025-10-dog-recalled-nationwide-salmonella-pets.html Veterinary medicine Mon, 06 Oct 2025 15:17:02 EDT news678982621 On a spit of sand 12 miles north of Santa Cruz, a small, emaciated sea lion lay on its side. The only sign of life was the deep press of its flippers against its belly, relaxing for a few seconds, then squeezing again. /news/2025-10-marine-mammals-dying-california-coast.html Ecology Cell & Microbiology Mon, 06 Oct 2025 07:50:02 EDT news678954967 This week, researchers reported that mild dietary stress supports healthy aging. Engineers created artificial neurons that can communicate directly with living cells. And dark energy observations suggest that the universe could end in a "big crunch" at 33 billion years old. /news/2025-10-saturday-citations-bird-news-vultures.html Other Sat, 04 Oct 2025 08:30:01 EDT news678707485 In a recent study by Dr. Sawada and his colleagues published in Scientific Reports, 183 human bones were surveyed, of which 52 were found to be worked human bones, all of which belong to the Neolithic Liangzhu culture. /news/2025-10-neolithic-chinese-culture-artifacts-systematic.html Archaeology Fri, 03 Oct 2025 11:49:59 EDT news678710991 When saltwater fish long ago evolved to live in fresh water, many of them also evolved a more sophisticated hearing system, including middle ear bones similar to those in humans. /news/2025-09-tiny-prehistoric-fish-fossil-catfish.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 02 Oct 2025 14:00:03 EDT news678471061 In a new study, a team of geologists and biologists led by CU Boulder resurrected ancient microbes that had been trapped in ice—in some cases for around 40,000 years. /news/2025-10-microbes-permafrost-thousands-years.html Earth Sciences Environment Thu, 02 Oct 2025 13:30:05 EDT news678630119 Beyond the race for scientific, commercial and military purposes, there is another space race of a more curious sort. A race to be the first to send various objects up there. But why? /news/2025-10-space-world-obsessed-orbit.html Space Exploration Thu, 02 Oct 2025 13:08:07 EDT news678629282 University of Michigan researchers have developed a tool powered by artificial intelligence that can help them examine the behavior of a single molecule out of a sea of information in the blink of an eye—or at least overnight. /news/2025-10-scalable-ai-tracks-motion-molecules.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 02 Oct 2025 13:07:10 EDT news678629225 Many people have probably seen birds picking up small pieces of man-made materials, like strips of a plastic bag or paper litter, and taking them into their nest. This behavior appears to be fairly widespread among birds. What's unique about some larger bird species, like certain vultures, eagles, and falcons, is that the same nest is used for centuries if it continues to be in a safe space. Generations of birds will continue to occupy and add materials to these nests for hundreds of years. /news/2025-10-bearded-vulture-hoards-cultural-artifacts.html Ecology Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 02 Oct 2025 10:40:01 EDT news678619914 October is Space Month. At Duke University, space research is more than just science—it's a bold journey across disciplines. This is the first in a series of stories featuring innovators, dreamers and doers shaping the future of the exploration of the cosmos. /news/2025-10-lemurs-laying-groundwork-interstellar.html Plants & Animals Ecology Thu, 02 Oct 2025 10:10:06 EDT news678617796 What did early humans like to eat? The answer, according to a team of archaeologists in Argentina, is extinct megafauna, such as giant sloths and giant armadillos. In a study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers demonstrate that these enormous animals were a staple food source for people in southern South America around 13,000 to 11,600 years ago. Their findings may also rewrite our understanding of how these massive creatures became extinct. /news/2025-10-early-humans-dined-giant-sloths.html Archaeology Thu, 02 Oct 2025 09:44:54 EDT news678617088 For the first time, a research team from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of TĂĽbingen and the Schöningen Research Center have reconstructed the genomes of an extinct horse species, Equus mosbachensis, from the archaeological site of Schöningen in Lower Saxony, which is approximately 300,000 years old. /news/2025-10-year-genomes-history-schningen-horses.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 02 Oct 2025 09:10:07 EDT news678615002 Fungi are vital to natural ecosystems by breaking down dead organic material and cycling it back into the environment as nutrients. But new research from the University of Utah finds one species, Marquandomyces marquandii, a ubiquitous soil mold, shows promise as a potential building block for new biomedical materials. /news/2025-10-soil-fungus-durable-hydrogels-potential.html Biochemistry Polymers Wed, 01 Oct 2025 17:24:04 EDT news678558241 New research has uncovered a species of hook-toothed lizard that lived about 167 million years ago and has a confusing set of features seen in snakes and geckos—two very distant relatives. One of the oldest relatively complete fossil lizards yet discovered, the Jurassic specimen is described in a study, published in the journal Nature, from a multinational collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and scientists in the United Kingdom, including University College London and the National Museums Scotland, France, and South Africa. /news/2025-09-jurassic-reptile-fossil-discovery-blurs.html Plants & Animals Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 01 Oct 2025 11:00:13 EDT news678439622 A newly described fossil reveals that leeches are at least 200 million years older than scientists previously thought, and that their earliest ancestors may have feasted not on blood, but on smaller marine creatures. /news/2025-10-rare-fossil-reveals-ancient-leeches.html Plants & Animals Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 01 Oct 2025 10:20:07 EDT news678531095 A study published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, led by Dr. Mohammad Reza Eghdami and his colleagues, examined the remains of a Parthian-era individual. The Parthians were descendants of the Parnian tribe and part of the Dahae Union. They were renowned for their military prowess, particularly in their mounted warfare tactics and skilled archery. /news/2025-09-ancient-parthian-shot-arrow.html Archaeology Wed, 01 Oct 2025 07:20:01 EDT news678444951 Antarctica's Southern Ocean is one of the most demanding places on Earth when it comes to survival. Its waters plunge below freezing, long periods of darkness restrict growth and feeding, and food webs shift with relentless climate swings. Yet one group of fish—the notothenioids, or Antarctic icefish—not only survived here, but flourished. /news/2025-09-antarctic-icefish-rewired-skulls-evolutionary.html Plants & Animals Evolution Tue, 30 Sep 2025 16:04:03 EDT news678467041