ANAHEIM, Calif. — Change is in the air. New data strengthen a hint that dark energy, long thought to be constant force in the universe, might change over time. Dark energy explains the observation that the universe’s expansion rate is accelerating. But its origins are unknown. It’s typically expected to have constant density across the…
A hopping robot shows off its squirrel-like skills
When it comes to speech, parrots have the gift of gab. And the way the brains of small parrots known as budgerigars bestow this gift is remarkably similar to human speech, researchers report March 19 in Nature. So far, budgerigars are the only animals known to have language-producing centers akin to those in humans, says…
The nearest single star to the sun, Barnard’s star, has a brood of planets all its own. The red dwarf star, about six light-years from Earth, hosts four close-in planets each about two to three times the mass of Mars, astronomers report in the March 20 Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Barnard’s star has a long history…
Two astronauts stuck in space for 9 months have returned to Earth
The clearest pictures yet of the newborn cosmos strengthen the prevailing model of the universe but deepen a mystery about its expansion rate. Measurements of this rate, known as the Hubble constant, have produced conflicting results. Cosmologists hoped that new data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile, which examines the oldest light in the…