Stone tools traditionally attributed to European and western Asian Neandertals have turned up nearly a continent away in southern China. Artifacts unearthed at a river valley site called Longtan include distinctive stone cutting and scraping implements and the rocks from which these items were struck. Until now, such items have been linked only to geographically…
A new cement-making process could shift production from being a carbon source to a carbon sink, creating a carbon-negative version of the building material, researchers report March 18 in Advanced Sustainable Systems. This process might also be adaptable to producing a variety of carbon-stashing products such as paint, plaster and concrete. Cement production is a…
The decades-long mystery of a never-ending explosion of X-rays around the remains of a dead star may have finally been solved. The radiation probably originates from the scorching-hot wreckage left behind by a giant planet’s annihilation. This discovery stems from four decades of X-ray observations of the Helix Nebula, located 650 light-years from Earth. The…
Generative artificial intelligence has entered a new frontier of fundamental biology: helping scientists to better understand proteins, the workhorses of living cells. Scientists have developed two new AI tools to decipher proteins often missed by existing detection methods, researchers report March 31 in Nature Machine Intelligence. Uncovering these unknown proteins in all types of biological…
A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake rocked central Myanmar on March 28 at about 12:50 p.m. local time, leaving at least 144 people confirmed dead so far and triggering widespread damage across both Myanmar and Thailand. Buildings collapsed, roads broke and at least one dam and a bridge crumbled. A magnitude 6.4 aftershock followed just 10…
Scientists working to unlock the secrets of de-extinction recently announced what they say is a turning point for the movement: the creation of transgenic mice with long, luxurious golden locks of tufted fur inspired by the coats of woolly mammoths. They’re called Colossal woolly mice. And yes, they are cute to boot. Transgenic mice —…