Cabo Pulmo is a close-knit community in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and the best preserved coral reef in the Gulf of California. But now the lands adjacent to the reef are under threat from a mega-development project, "Cabo Dorado," should construction go ahead. Punta Arena, the site of the proposed Cabo Dorado development [Credit: Ralph Lee Hopkins]Scientists at the University of California,...
University of Leicester researchers have captured stunning images of Saturn's auroras as the planet's magnetic field is battered by charged particles from the Sun. Images of Saturn's northern UV auroras obtained by Nichols and coworkers using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The auroras are clearly visible near the north pole and exhibit changes in shape over the...
New research suggests that methanogens -- among the simplest and oldest organisms on Earth -- could survive on Mars. Methanogens contained in these test tubes, which also contained growth nutrients, sand and water, survived when subjected to Martian freeze-thaw cycles at the University of Arkansas [Credit: University of Arkansas, Fayetteville]Methanogens, microorganisms in the domain Archaea,...
Some Sun-like stars are 'earth-eaters.' During their development they ingest large amounts of the rocky material from which 'terrestrial' planets like Earth, Mars and Venus are made. What if we could determine if a given star is likely to host a planetary system like our own by breaking down its light into a single high-resolution spectrum and analyzing it? A spectrum taken of the Sun is shown above....
The identification of rock art found in Farafra as Neolithic adds substance to the argument that Egypt drew on cultural influences from Africa as well as the Near East. At a talk given on 19 May, 2014, archaeologist Dr Giulio Lucarini discussed his fieldwork in the Egyptian Western Desert and show images of newly-identified Neolithic drawings to a public audience for the first time. Boats Arch...
During the recent excavation season, which lasts from December until early May, the Egyptian archaeological mission at Gabal El-Nour in Beni Suef uncovered the remains of a Ptolemaic limestone temple. A limestone temple built during the reign of King Ptolemy II has been uncovered at the Gabal El-Nour archaeological site in Beni Suef [Credit: Ahram Online]Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim...
Archaeologists working in the northern Peruvian region of Piura recently discovered an administrative complex that they believe was constructed by the Tallan culture. Excavators say that the site was constructed by members of the Tallan culture [Credit: Ralph Zapata/El Comercio]El Comercio reports that investigations at the site began their excavation in two ditches near the town of Chaquira. Locals...
Few ancient civilizations have left an architectural footprint quite as indelible as the Nabateans did in Petra, southern Jordan. Archaeoastronomers recently measured the celestial alignments of monuments in Petra, Jordan, and found many line up with the setting of the sun during solstices and equinoxes [Credit: Getty Images]Majestic temples, burial chambers and homes still stand, carved...
The Ashmolean Museum's summer exhibition 'Discovering Tutankhamun', which will open on July 24th 2014, will tell the story of one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Find out more about the hunt for the tomb and the thrill of its discovery, and see Howard Carter’s original records, drawings and photographs. The 10 year long process of recording the remarkable objects...
Dozens of previously unknown inscriptions and drawings on the wall of the church and adjoining largest so far identified Nubian sanitary complex of this period have been discovered by Polish scientists in al-Ghazali in northern Sudan. al-Ghazali, North Church [Credit: Miron Bogacki]This is the result of a three-month mission of Polish archaeologists and conservators, completed in March. This year,...
Greenland’s icy reaches are far more vulnerable to warm ocean waters from climate change than had been thought, according to new research by UC Irvine and NASA glaciologists. The work, published today in Nature Geoscience, shows previously uncharted deep valleys stretching for dozens of miles under the Greenland Ice Sheet. A glacier in the Sukkertoppen ice cap in southwest Greenland flows down a rocky...
Seventeen European bison were released in Romania on Saturday into the wild Carpathian mountain range, one of the largest reintroductions of the endangered mammal in Europe. European bison are released at a reserve in Armenis village, south-western Romania on May 17, 2014 [Credit: AFP]The animals which came from Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, were blessed by a local Orthodox priest in...
Using one of the world's largest telescopes, a Lawrence Livermore team and international collaborators have tracked the orbit of a planet at least four times the size of Jupiter. Lawrence Livermore researchers and international collaborators have refined estimates of the orbit and size of the exoplanet Beta Pictoris b [Credit: DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]The scientists were...
Exploding supernovae are a phenomenon that is still not fully understood. The trouble is that the state of nuclear matter in stars cannot be reproduced on Earth. In a recent paper published in EPJ E, Yves Pomeau from the University of Arizona, USA, and his French colleagues from the CNRS provide a new model of supernovae represented as dynamical systems subject to a loss of stability, just before they...
Jupiter's trademark Great Red Spot -- a swirling anticyclonic storm feature larger than Earth -- has shrunken to the smallest size ever measured. Astronomers have followed this downsizing since the 1930s. Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a churning anticyclonic storm. In this comparison image the photo at the top was taken by Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1995 and shows the spot at a diameter...
South African astronomers have discovered the very first known stars in the flared disk of our Milky Way Galaxy. These stars are situated on the far side of our Galaxy, 80 thousand light years from the Earth and beyond the Galactic Centre. This artist's impression of the Milky Way Galaxy seen from outside shows the Sun (large yellow circle) and some of the well studied nearby Cepheids (pale blue circles). ...
According to a report by APSA2011, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has destroyed Assyrian statues and artifacts believed to be 3000 years old. The Assyrian archaeological artifacts were illegally excavated from the Tell Ajaja site. Looting of Assyrian artifacts was also carried out in Iraq soon after 2003 by Al-Qaeda, which sold the artifacts to finance its operations....
Scientists and archaeologists at the University of Manchester have uncovered evidence that our ancestors carried out ritual human sacrifice ... in Salford. Worsley Man - whose head was found in a Salford peat bog in 1958 [Credit: University of Manchester]The discovery, captured on camera for an upcoming documentary, was made during a ground-breaking CT scan of the 1,900-year-old remains of ‘Worsley...
During excavation works carried out in Bastet cemetery at the Saqqara necropolis just outside Cairo, French archaeologists stumbled upon three wooden sarcophagi belonging to Ta-Ekht, a singer in a sacred choir in the 18th dynasty period (1543–1292 BC). The coffin, belonging to a chantress called Ta Akhet and dated to the Third Intermediate Period (Dynasties 22-24), was found during the cleaning...
A skeleton found in East Sussex is the first discovered of a man likely to have been involved in battles at the time of the 1066 Norman invasion. Tim Sutherland said the skeleton was apparently unique and could unfold a 'remarkable new story' [Credit: Sussex Archaeological Society]Skeleton 180, dug up from a medieval cemetery, was thought to have died at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 but is now known...