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Researchers Unveil Complete Fruit Fly Connectome

The wiring diagram of the central nervous system of an adult male fruit fly will help researchers better understand how the brain enables complex action, from sensory perception to behavior. Image credit: FlyEM Project Team, HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus / Cambridge Connectomics Group / Google Research / Philip Hubbard, HHMI Janelia Research Campus.

After nearly two decades of work, scientists have completed a wiring diagram of the central nervous system of an adult male fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster).

The post Researchers Unveil Complete Fruit Fly Connectome appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Hubble and Webb Team Up to Spy Tiny Frozen Worlds beyond Neptune

This artist’s concept depicts a trans-Neptunian object. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

For the first time, astronomers combined Hubble and Webb space telescopes to hunt down some of the smallest, faintest objects ever spotted in the outer Solar System.

The post Hubble and Webb Team Up to Spy Tiny Frozen Worlds beyond Neptune appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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New Owl Species Discovered in Peru

The Jalca horned owl (Bubo jalca). Image credit: López-Lanús et al.

A horned owl living in a narrow strip of high-Andean grassland in northern Peru is a species new to science, according to a paper published in July 2026 in the journal Audiornis.

The post New Owl Species Discovered in Peru appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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115-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Recovered from Deep Drill Core in China

Model of Psittacosaurus sp. based on skin and pigmentation patterns on the specimen from the Senckenberg Museum, Germany. Image credit: Jakob Vinther et al.

Scientists have identified the first dinosaur fossil from a remote western section of the Bayan Gobi Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia, extending the known geographic range of dinosaur fossils in this important Early Cretaceous rock unit.

The post 115-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Recovered from Deep Drill Core in China appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Physicists Devise New Way to Listen for ‘Hairy’ Black Holes

Palomino Ylla et al. found a way to check for black hole hair using changes in ringdown waves. Image credit: Nagoya University.

When two black holes merge, the resulting object rings like a struck bell, radiating gravitational waves that fade in a distinctive pattern called ringdown.

The post Physicists Devise New Way to Listen for ‘Hairy’ Black Holes appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Hubble Spots ‘Superbubble’ in Large Magellanic Cloud

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.

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BepiColombo Begins Final Approach to Mercury

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.

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Ancient DNA Rewrites Story of Enigmatic ‘American Cheetah’

Miracinonyx trumani and the ecosystem this species lived in. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi.

For several decades, paleontologists have described Miracinonyx trumani -- an extinct species of cheetah-like felid that roamed the North American prairies and steppe terrains more than 13,000 years ago -- as North America’s answer to the African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus).

The post Ancient DNA Rewrites Story of Enigmatic ‘American Cheetah’ appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Physicists Spot Curious Signal in Hunt for Elusive Dark Matter Particles

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.

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Astronomers Discover Decagonal Wave circling Saturn’s South Pole

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.

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Gemini North Telescope Captures Stunning Portrait of Merging Spiral Galaxies

This image of NGC 7253 was captured by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, one half of the International Gemini Observatory. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. Miller & M. Rodriguez, International Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF’s NOIRLab / D. de Martin & M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab.

A new image from the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea in Hawai’i offers the sharpest look yet at a striking pair of interacting spiral galaxies, cataloged as NGC 7253.

The post Gemini North Telescope Captures Stunning Portrait of Merging Spiral Galaxies appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Homo antecessor Had Surprisingly Modern Skull, New Fossils Suggest

An artist’s rendering of a Homo antecessor individual known as the Girl of Gran Dolina. Image credit: Tom Björklund.

A new analysis of three skull fragments unearthed at the Gran Dolina cave site in Spain indicates that Homo antecessor had bone thickness closer to that of Neanderthals and modern people than to more archaic hominins.

The post Homo antecessor Had Surprisingly Modern Skull, New Fossils Suggest appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Webb Captures Stunning Infrared View of Eskimo Nebula

This Webb/NIRCam/MIRI image shows the Eskimo Nebula, a bipolar planetary nebula some 4,200 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / STScI / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

New infrared observations of the Eskimo Nebula, a bipolar double-shell planetary nebula in the constellation of Gemini, reveal clumps of dust, ionized gas and expanding shells surrounding a central star.

The post Webb Captures Stunning Infrared View of Eskimo Nebula appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Why Were There No Tiny Non-Avian Dinosaurs? Mammals May Have Been to Blame

Torvosaurus gurneyi. Image credit: © Sergey Krasovskiy.

Dinosaurs evolved into some of the largest animals ever to walk the Earth, but a new mathematical model suggests that early mammals may have crowded them out of the ecological niches reserved for the smallest creatures.

The post Why Were There No Tiny Non-Avian Dinosaurs? Mammals May Have Been to Blame appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Webb Finds Stellar ‘Treasure Chest’ in Carina Nebula

This Webb image shows the Treasure Chest, a cometary globule located within the famous Carina Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / M. Reiter / M.H. Özsaraç.

A stunning new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals a comet-shaped cloud in the Carina Nebula hiding a cluster of about 70 young stars, including a rare giant of O-type nearly 19 times as massive as the Sun.

The post Webb Finds Stellar ‘Treasure Chest’ in Carina Nebula appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Liquid Nitrogen May Have Flowed on Pluto’s Surface in Recent Past

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Planetary researchers analyzing images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft have found evidence that liquid nitrogen may still be seeping up from beneath the dwarf planet’s giant glacier, Sputnik Planitia, marking the first suggested case of recently flowing liquid on Pluto’s surface.

The post Liquid Nitrogen May Have Flowed on Pluto’s Surface in Recent Past appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Neanderthal Gene Still Shapes Muscle and Jaws in Some Living Humans

Velazquez-Arcelay et al. found that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be early risers, the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier. Image credit: Holger Neumann / Neanderthal Museum.

Neanderthals vanished roughly 42,000 years ago, but a piece of their biology appears to be quietly at work in some people today, according to a new study led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The post Neanderthal Gene Still Shapes Muscle and Jaws in Some Living Humans appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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Study Points to Sugar, Not Just Meat, as Fuel for Human Brain Evolution

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

A team of researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Glasgow argues that dietary sugars, not animal foods, may have played the decisive role in the expansion of the human brain over the past 4 million years, as hominin brain size grew nearly fivefold, from about 300 grams in early relatives like […]

The post Study Points to Sugar, Not Just Meat, as Fuel for Human Brain Evolution appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

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