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20,105 articles from ScienceNOW
No kittens required: Scientists find new way to study toxoplasmosis parasite in lab
One of the most widespread parasites on the planet can also be one of the most difficult to study.
Toxoplasma gondii
—a single-celled protozoan—is capable of infecting almost every mammal and bird species,
including humans
, and in severe cases causes blindness, birth defects, and death. Yet it only sexually...
Giant array of low-cost telescopes could speed hunt for radio bursts, massive black holes
When the immense Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed in 2020, it
left gaping holes in astronomy
. Now, a team from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) hopes to address some of the gaps with a very different instrument: a tightly packed array of relatively inexpensive radio dishes that aims to quickly image radio sources across wide swaths of the...
THURSDAY 30. MARCH 2023
T. rex had lips, new study suggests
Jurassic Park
may be about to get a makeover. A new study finds that
Tyrannosaurus rex
and its relatives did not look like crocodiles, with teeth jutting from their maws in all their full, razor-sharp glory. Instead, these dinosaurs covered their chompers with lips, more like today’s lizards.
“This is a nice, concise answer to a question that has...
News at a glance: A particle’s weighty measurement, Marburg in Africa, and a fossil called “the blob”
PARTICLE PHYSICS
Particle mass dispels hint of new physics
A fleeting, weighty elementary particle called the W boson has just the mass predicted by theory, physicists working with Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reported this week at a conference in Italy. The finding comes from ATLAS, one of four large particle detectors fed by the LHC,...
Ancient people lived among ruins too. What did they make of them?
Around 500 C.E., a new government arose in the community now called Río Viejo, near the coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It was once the largest city in the region, but it had shrunk by half and lost its political authority. The new rulers aimed to step into that power vacuum. But they had one problem: the ruins of a complex of ceremonial buildings built by Río Viejo’s last...
Horse nations: Animal began transforming Native American life startlingly early
Sweeping new study based on archaeological evidence, chemical isotope analysis, and ancient DNA
Chinese researchers release genomic data that could help clarify origin of COVID-19 pandemic
In the face of intense pressure and criticism from many in the scientific community, Chinese researchers today released a trove of new genetic data that may offer fresh clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also substantially revised a related study they first posted online 13 months ago to include this evidence, which some scientists say gives more credibility to the thesis...
NASA lays out vision for robotic Mars exploration
Rover by rover, NASA’s exploration of Mars is building to an expensive climax: a multibillion-dollar mission later this decade to collect the rock samples
currently being gathered by the Perseverance rover
and return them to Earth. But then what?
NASA offered a partial answer to that question today. It envisions a series of lower cost Mars missions, costing up to...
WEDNESDAY 29. MARCH 2023
Binge eating brain circuits similar to those associated with drug use, other habit-forming behaviors
Scientists have uncovered the brain circuits that may underlie binge eating disorder and related conditions. The neural wiring is the same as that tied to psychiatric conditions such as drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The work could lead to new ways to understand and treat eating disorders, says Rebecca Boswell, a clinical psychologist at Princeton University...
China is cracking down on its wildlife trade. Is it enough?
For years, scientists and conservationists have urged China’s government to crack down on a thriving trade in wild animals that they say both threatens the nation’s rich biodiversity and increases the risk that a dangerous disease will jump from wildlife to humans. Now, some of those pleas are being answered: On 1 May, officials will begin to enforce
a strengthened Wildlife...