Daily News update on – Science


July 4, 2024
NEWS
Space.com

Happy 4th of July! Infant star creates red, white and blue fireworks in new JWST image
The new Independence Day image from the powerful space telescope shows a patriotic-looking protostar. Comments (0). Two glowing blue arcs joined by a bright red smeared sphere. The nebula L1527 and its erupting protostar put on a celestial fireworks …
CNN

Carpenter ants amputate the legs of their nestmates to save their lives, study says
That research found a different ant species called Matabele ants, or Megaponera analis, use their mouths to secrete antimicrobial compounds to cleanse injuries and prevent potential infections. The compounds are produced by what’s known as metapleural …
Space.com

NASA astronauts send Fourth of July message to Earth from ISS (video)
The six NASA astronauts who are living off planet at the moment just beamed a special birthday message down to their home country. Mike Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Jeanette Epps, …
The New York Times

Our Planet Is About to Reach Its Greatest Distance From the Sun
According to Kirby Runyon, a geologist at the Planetary Science Institute, all planets in the solar system travel in elongated circles around the sun, rather than perfect ones. And it’s most likely true for worlds around other stars, too.
The New York Times

This Bigheaded Fossil Turned Up in a Place No One Expected to Find It
Spencer Lucas, a paleontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science who was not involved in the study, said that the discovery “is not enough to force a rethink of most of what we think about late Paleozoic tetrapod evolution. But it is …
BBC News

Wild birds ‘remember’ where and when they find food
Researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UEA) studied the feeding habits of blue tits and great tits. In the “first experiment of its kind to involve wild …
Livescience.com

The Milky Way may be surrounded by ‘too many’ mini galaxies, new discoveries reveal
Astronomers have just discovered two dwarf galaxy candidates orbiting our galaxy. The orientation of these entities suggests there could be up to 500 similar stellar clusters circling the Milky Way, which is more than double previous estimates.
Reuters

Namibia fossil is a prehistoric ‘swamp thing’ with menacing fangs
July 4 (Reuters) – You might call it the “swamp thing.” About 280 million years ago, a large creature built somewhat like a salamander but with frightful fangs prowled the swamps and lakes of what is now Namibia, ambushing prey as a top predator in a …
The Conversation US

With its latest Moon mission success, China’s space programme has the US in its sights
June 25 2024 marked a new “first” in the history of spaceflight. China’s robotic Chang’e 6 spacecraft delivered samples of rock back to Earth from a huge feature on the Moon called the south pole–Aitken basin. After touching down on the Moon’s “far …
Popular Mechanics

A Tipping Point in Antarctica Could Trigger Unstoppable Ice Melting
For years, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been melting faster than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A new study published by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) says that insidious …