By analyzing nickel isotopes preserved in the 66-million-year-old debris left by the Chicxulub impact, researchers conclude that the asteroid responsible for Earth’s last mass extinction most likely belonged to an exceptionally rare class of primitive meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites of the Ornans type (CO chondrites).

The post Dinosaurs May Have Been Wiped Out by ‘Oddball’ Space Rock appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Paleontologists in China have discovered what they say is the earliest confirmed pieces of amber ever found, a fossilized resin roughly 385 million years old (Middle Devonian epoch) that predates the previous record-holder by about 65 million years.

The post 385-Million-Year-Old Amber Found in China appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Using spectral data from the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, astronomers detected helium escaping from LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet that orbits in the habitable zone of the nearby low-mass star LHS 1140.

The post Potential Atmosphere Detected on Habitable-Zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

A new analysis suggests the four sub-Earth exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s star -- the Sun’s nearest single-star neighbor -- are likely packed with the deep-Earth mineral periclase, stripped of their atmospheres and far too hostile to support life.

The post Barnard’s Star Planetary System May Be Filled with Water-Poor Rocky Worlds appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Researchers have identified and formally described a new species of the African monkey genus Colobus living in the remote interior of the Democratic Republic of Congo, marking only the fifth new monkey species found on the continent in the past 75 years.

The post Scientists Discover New Monkey Species in Democratic Republic of Congo appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Thousands of fossilized bones from a Cretaceous-period bonebed in Wyoming, the United States, offer rare physical evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex fed on the carcasses of a duck-billed dinosaur species called Edmontosaurus annectens.

The post Tyrannosaurus rex Scavenged Duck-Billed Dinosaurs in Ancient Wyoming, Bite Marks Reveal appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Using NSF’s Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers made the first radio detection of polarized light and Faraday rotation from a gamma-ray burst afterglow, offering an unprecedented glimpse of the magnetic fields surrounding one of the Universe’s most powerful explosions.

The post Astronomers Detect Gamma-Ray Burst’s Magnetic Fingerprint appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Named Beta Pictoris d, the newly-discovered world is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b -- the first planet discovered around the A5-type star Beta Pictoris -- and is among the lightest exoplanets ever to be imaged from the ground.

The post Astronomers Discover and Directly Image Third Planet in Beta Pictoris System appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

New research indicates that Pluto’s largest moon, Charon, may continue to lose rotational energy despite the pair’s long-standing tidal lock, offering scientists a rare glimpse into the hidden interiors of distant icy worlds.

The post Pluto’s Moon Charon May Still Be Slowing Its Spin, Study Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

New research from Columbia University found that adults who cut their sleep by about 80 minutes for six weeks packed on a pound (0.45 kg) and moved less during the day.

The post Losing Even 80 Minutes of Sleep a Night Linked to Weight Gain appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

A new genus and species of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur has been identified in southern Alberta, Canada, dating back 77 million years to the Campanian age of the Cretaceous period.

The post New Crested Dinosaur Species Identified in Canada appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

New images of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveal gas filaments funneling material into a spinning disk around a supermassive black hole 800 light-years across.

The post Webb Catches Supermassive Black Hole Feeding from Cosmic Gas Streams appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Using near-UV spectroscopic data from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers discovered four white dwarfs orbiting nearby red dwarf stars.

The post Astronomers Discover Four New White Dwarfs in Solar Neighborhood appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Paleontologists in Uruguay have identified a new species of aeolosaurine titanosaur from a pair of remarkably well-preserved tailbones unearthed in the 1980s near the Uruguay River.

The post Paleontologists Discover New Species of Titanosaur in Uruguay appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Using the Yebes 40-m and IRAM 30-m radio telescopes, astronomers have discovered erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar commonly found in raspberries and sunless tanning cosmetics, in the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027.

The post Astronomers Detect Sugar in Interstellar Space for First Time appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

For as long as readers have pored over Homer’s Odyssey they have pictured Ithaca, the homeland Odysseus fights for ten years to reach, as an island unto itself.

The post Was Odysseus’ Ithaca Never an Island? Scholars Challenge Centuries-Old Assumption appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Slow-motion video reveals that buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) respond to sweet and bitter tastes with distinct, context-dependent behaviors resembling mammalian expressions of pleasure and disgust, adding fresh evidence to the debate over insect consciousness.

The post Bumblebees Display Emotion-Like Reactions to Sweet and Bitter Tastes appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

A new analysis of data from the Western Australian-based Raine Study suggests that two humble vegetable groups -- legumes and cruciferous vegetables -- may play an outsize role in protecting young adults from early cardiometabolic risk, though the benefits appear to diverge sharply between men and women.

The post Beans and Broccoli Linked to Lower Heart Risk in Young Adults appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Today, lepidosaurs -- the reptile group that includes lizards, snakes and New Zealand’s tuatara -- are among the most diverse vertebrates on Earth, but their earliest evolutionary history remains poorly understood.

The post Tiny Triassic Reptile Sheds Light on Early Lizard Evolution appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Spriggina floundersi, a marine species that lived during the Ediacaran period 550 million years ago, is one of Earth’s earliest bilaterally symmetrical animals.

The post Ediacaran Sea Creature May Hold Earliest Evidence of Right-Handedness appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.