❌

Normal view

Denisovans Once Roamed Southwest China, New Fossils Reveal

10 September 2026 at 20:01
An artist’s concept of a Penghu Denisovan walking under the bright Sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

Paleoanthropologists have identified a trove of Denisovan fossils from a cave in China’s Yunnan province, extending the known range of the elusive human relative and providing the first-ever direct evidence of what its forearm bones looked like.

The post Denisovans Once Roamed Southwest China, New Fossils Reveal appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Elephants Show Talent for Resisting Impulses

9 September 2026 at 21:45
Experiment setup: (A) an elephant enters the ‘over’ opening to gain access to food in a familiarization trial; (B) an elephant enters the ‘under’ opening to gain access to food (apple) in a test trial. Image credit: Sangpa Dittakul.

In experiments in Thailand, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) learned to ignore an enticing but ineffective route to food and quickly adapted when a familiar solution stopped working.

The post Elephants Show Talent for Resisting Impulses appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Britain’s Tallest Standing Stones Traced to Their Geological Source

9 September 2026 at 20:26
The Devil’s Arrows, the three towering gritstone megaliths on the western outskirts of Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, the United Kingdom. Image credit: Curtin University.

Scientists from Curtin University and the University of York have pinpointed the origin of the Devil’s Arrows, the three towering gritstone megaliths that have stood on the edge of Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, for roughly 4,000 years, ending a long-running archaeological debate.

The post Britain’s Tallest Standing Stones Traced to Their Geological Source appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Dark Energy May Not Be Constant After All, New Supernova Survey Suggests

8 September 2026 at 17:21
This is an artist’s concept of a Type Ia supernova exploding in the intergalactic space between galaxies within a galactic cluster. Image credit: Alex Parker / NASA / SDSS.

Astronomers have combined 2,884 Type Ia supernovae -- which are used to measure cosmic distances -- with cosmic microwave background and galaxy-mapping data, deepening cracks in the standard ‘cosmological constant’ model.

The post Dark Energy May Not Be Constant After All, New Supernova Survey Suggests appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Hubble Spots ‘Superbubble’ in Large Magellanic Cloud

7 September 2026 at 20:02
This Hubble image shows the emission nebula LHA 120-N44. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Gouliermis.

A new images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals LHA 120-N44, a striking nebula located roughly 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

The post Hubble Spots ‘Superbubble’ in Large Magellanic Cloud appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

BepiColombo Begins Final Approach to Mercury

6 September 2026 at 23:52
An artist’s impression of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft in cruise configuration, with Mercury in the background. On its 7.2 year journey to the innermost planet, BepiColombo will fly by Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury six times before entering into orbit. The MTM module is shown with ion thrusters firing, and with its solar wings extended, spanning about 100 feet (30 m) from tip-to-tip. The 24.6-foot (7.5 m) long solar array of the MPO orbiter in the middle is seen extending to the top. The Mio orbiter is hidden inside the sunshield in this orientation. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab / NASA / JPL.

After nearly eight years and billions of kilometers of travel, BepiColombo -- a science mission led by ESA in close collaboration with JAXA -- has begun its long-awaited arrival at the smallest and innermost planet in our Solar System.

The post BepiColombo Begins Final Approach to Mercury appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Scientists Map Genetics of Personality across Million People

3 September 2026 at 22:15
According to Professor Graur, the functional fraction within the human genome cannot exceed 25%, and is probably considerably lower.

Researchers have identified more than 1,200 locations in the human genome associated with personality traits, offering the most detailed look yet at the biological underpinnings of traits like sociability, anxiety and curiosity.

The post Scientists Map Genetics of Personality across Million People appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Physicists Spot Curious Signal in Hunt for Elusive Dark Matter Particles

3 September 2026 at 17:16
To search for dark matter, LZ uses photomultiplier tubes (shown here before installation in the detector) to capture light from particle interactions. Image credit: Matthew Kapust / Sanford Underground Research Laboratory.

Physicists using the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter detector deep underground in a former South Dakota gold mine say they’ve recorded a single particle interaction that they can’t easily explain, but they’re a long way from claiming a discovery.

The post Physicists Spot Curious Signal in Hunt for Elusive Dark Matter Particles appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Astronomers Discover Decagonal Wave circling Saturn’s South Pole

3 September 2026 at 00:26
These Hubble images show Saturn and the gas giant’s southern pole with its 10-sided atmospheric wave. Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI / Agustin Sánchez-Lavega, UPV / Amy Simon, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Michael Wong, UC Berkeley / Alyssa Pagan.

For almost five decades, Saturn’s north pole has been famous for hosting a bizarre, six-sided jet stream known as the hexagon, a feature first spotted by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft in the 1980s and still churning today.

The post Astronomers Discover Decagonal Wave circling Saturn’s South Pole appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

❌