Sep 7th, 2024 - Ever had that moment when you throw a rock into a pond and observe the ripples moving away from the spot? Now, imagine something similar happening, but on a much bigger scale – in space. That's what happened when NASA's DART spacecraft made history by altering the path of a gigantic space rock hurling through the cosmos. DART mission makes history In 2022, DART made more than just ripples, it made waves of debris in space. It strategically collided with the Dimorphos asteroid, causing a ripple effect that shifted its orbit around its larger sibling, the Didymos asteroid. The ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - A person in Missouri has been infected with bird flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The adult, who didn't have known contact with poultry or dairy cows, was hospitalized on Aug. 22 and has recovered. The case adds to growing anxiety about the risk of bird flu spreading among humans, especially since this is the first infection in a person in the U.S. who didn't work with poultry or dairy cows. The CDC said the risk among the general public remains low. At least 196 herds of dairy cows in 14 states have confirmed outbreaks of the H5 influenza virus, according to ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - The solar system's largest moon, , which orbits the largest planet, , was hit by an asteroid four billion years ago that shifted on its axis, new research suggests. The asteroid was about 20 times larger than the Chicxulub asteroid, which is thought to have , estimates Naoyuki Hirata, a planetologist at Kobe University in Hyogo, Japan, in the Sept. 3 issue of the journal " Ganymede, which is 50% larger than our own moon, has an ocean beneath its icy surface – up to 60 miles deep – and is suspected of being able to . The moon is also interesting because of the or furrows seen ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - For those who turn their lenses toward nature, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest is among the most prestigious awards—it's  been referred to  as the "Oscars of wildlife photography." Now in its 60th year, the competition drew in nearly 60,000 submissions from 117 countries and territories around the globe for its 2024 contest. While the winners have yet to be announced, the Natural History Museum in London, which develops and produces the competition, recently released a collection of highly commended images that offer a sneak peak of what's to come. From a ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - Starchy foods have played a pivotal role in human evolution, influencing not only our diets but also our genetic makeup. A recent study has revealed that the rise of agriculture – around 12,000 years ago – and the subsequent increase in starchy staples like wheat and grains, significantly impacted the human genome. Researchers from the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom found that our ability to digest carbohydrates has significantly evolved over time. This is closely linked to the rise of agriculture and the increase of starchy foods in our diets. The evolutionary ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - An illegally-owned 13-foot Burmese python was seized from a home in central New York state last week, officials said. On Aug. 28, an officer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation received a report about a snake in New Hartford, a town about 50 miles east of Syracuse. The complainant said they believed someone was keeping the reptile in their home illegally, the agency said Tuesday in a Facebook post. The officer identified the snake as a Burmese python after seeing a picture of it, mainly because of the "arrowhead like design on its head," per the department. It is ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - Virtually all multicellular organisms on Earth live in symbiotic associations with very large and complex microbial communities known as microbiomes. New research has just been published aimed at offering a complete understanding how those relationships form. Computational ecologist Dr Miguel Lurgi and colleagues explore how associations between complex bacterial communities and multicellular hosts emerge in nature by combining theory with empirical work. They are currently using the proposed framework to investigate microbes inside marine sponges. The study is published in Trends in ... [Read More]

Sep 6th, 2024 - Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.  . When scientists attached a tag to a pregnant porbeagle shark in October 2020 to learn more about the creature's habitat, they didn't expect their tracker to capture evidence of how large sharks hunt one another. But when the tracker registered some unexpected activity in March 2021, the scientists realized a larger shark had eaten their research subject. The team shared these unexpected findings in a new study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science . "This is the first documented predation event of a porbeagle ... [Read More]