The majority of ‘elliptical’ galaxies are not spherical but disc-shaped, resembling spiral galaxies such as our own Milky Way with the gas and dust removed, new observations suggest. The results come from Atlas3D, a survey of all 260 early-type (‘elliptical’ and ‘lenticular’)
A last-minute technical problem has delayed Nasa’s unprecedented flight to the sun. The launch was pushed back after several delays from a technical glitch on the rocket carrying the probe, United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket, caused NASA to run out the clock on its 65-minute launch window Saturday. “Teams worked very hard this
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The decline of large predators and other “apex consumers” at the top of the food chain has disrupted ecosystems all over the planet, according to a review of recent findings conducted by an international team of scientists and published in the July 15 issue of Science. The study looked at research on a wide range
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A new study combining data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory has turned up a surprise. Most of the huge black holes in the centres of galaxies in the past 11 billion years were not turned on by mergers between galaxies, as had been
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Social studies of Facebook and Twitter have been adapted to gain a greater understanding of the swarming behaviour of locusts. The enormous success of social networking sites has vividly illustrated the importance of networking for humans; however for some animals, keeping informed about others of their kind is even more important. In a study published
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Tropical lizards may be slow. But they aren’t dumb. They can do problem-solving tasks just as well as birds and mammals, a new study shows. A Duke University experiment tested Puerto Rican anoles on several cognitive tasks and found they can learn and remember to solve a problem they’ve never faced before. The results challenge
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