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Newswise — Tracing the forested wetlands of Bulgaria some six million years ago, a new species of panda has been discovered by scientists who claim that it is currently the last known and “most developed” European giant panda. Excavated from the bowels of Bulgaria’s National Museum of Natural History, two tooth fossils originally discovered in the eastern European country in the late 1970s, provide new evidence of a sizable relative of the modern giant panda. Unlike today’s iconic black and white bears, they did not rely on pure bamboo. “Although not a direct ancestor of the modern genus of giant pandas, it is a close relative,” explains Museum Professor Nikolai Spassov, whose findings were published today in a peer-reviewed publication. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology . “This discovery demonstrates how little we still know about the primeval realm and demonstrates also that historic discoveries in paleontology can yield unexpected results, even today.” The upper carnival teeth, an

image: Reconstruction of A. nikolovi sp. Nov. from Bulgaria. Artwork by Velizar Simeonovski, Chicago. see again Credit: © Velizar Simeonovski, Chicago Tracing the forested wetlands of Bulgaria some six million years ago, a new species of panda has been discovered by scientists who say today is the last known and “most evolved” European giant panda. Excavated from the bowels of Bulgaria’s National Museum of Natural History, two tooth fossils originally discovered in the eastern European country in the late 1970s, provide new evidence of a sizable relative of the modern giant panda. Unlike today’s iconic black and white bears, they did not rely on pure bamboo. “Although not a direct ancestor of the modern genus of giant pandas, it is a close relative,” explains Museum Professor Nikolai Spassov, whose findings were published today in a peer-reviewed publication. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology . “This discovery demonstrates ho

VFTS 243 is a binary system of a large hot blue star and a black hole orbiting each other, as seen in this animation. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada, CC BY There is always something new and exciting going on in the field of black hole research. Albert Einstein first published his book explaining the general theory of relativity—which postulates black holes—in 1922. One hundred years later, astronomers captured the true image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. In a recent paper, a team of astronomers describes another exciting new discovery: the first “dormant” black hole observed outside a galaxy. I am an astrophysicist who has studied black holes—the densest objects in the universe—for nearly two decades. An inactive black hole is a black hole that does not emit detectable light. Because of this, they are notoriously hard to find. This new discovery is exciting because it provides insight into the formation and evolution of

EAST LANSING, Michigan – About three years ago, Wolfgang “Wolfi” Mittig and Yassid Ayyad set out in search of the universe’s lost mass, better known as dark matter, in the heart of an atom. Their expedition didn’t lead them to dark matter, but they still discovered something never seen before, something that defied explanation. Well, at least an explanation that everyone can agree on. “It’s like a detective story,” said Mittig, Hannah Distinguished Professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and faculty member at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB. “We started looking for dark matter and we didn’t find it,” he said. “Instead, we find other things that challenge the theory to explain.” So the team got back to work, conducting more experiments, gathering more evidence to make their findings plausible. Mittig, Ayyad and their colleagues strengthened their case at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, or NSCL, at Michigan State Uni

Scientists were impressed, excited, amazed, and every space enthusiast was stunned when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Tuesday unveiled the clearest image from outer space ever seen. One scientist even shed tears. The five images come from the largest infrared telescope ever launched into space, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, Webb for short). Webb has been orbiting the Sun since taking off from French Guiana on December 25, 2021, and the stunning full-color image is just the start of what to expect from the telescope in the next two decades. The images open our eyes to a faintly dead star, called the Southern Ring Nebula, which stretches over a black background of space with glowing red and blue colors, with a shimmering star in the center, and to the Carina Nebula. —which looks very much like a rugged mountain range with a blue night sky with young stars shining all over the area. “Webb will enable major advances in the study of objects at multip

In 1992, astronomers discovered the first exoplanet in an unexpected part of the universe: around a pulsar, a rapidly rotating stellar corpse. Not many other pulsar planets have been discovered since then, and with potentially good reason: In new research detailed July 12 at the National Astronomical Meeting in the UK, astronomers are now discovering that such pulsar worlds may prove extremely rare. Here’s the background- Astronomers discovered the first known exoplanet around the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1992, located about 2,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. A pulsar is a type of neutron star, the corpse of a star that dies in a cataclysmic explosion known as a supernova, whose gravity is strong enough to crush protons together with electrons to form neutrons — but not massive enough to become a black hole. The violent nature of supernovae often makes the remnants of their ancestral stars spin. A rotating neutron star can spin up to 700 times per second, emittin

12 July 2022 12:30 Genetic defects that lead to abnormal inflammation in the hands, hips, knees, and other joints may help explain why some people are more prone to developing severe osteoarthritis than others, according to scientists from the University of Utah Health. Photo credit: Getty Images An overactive inflammatory response can trigger the most common form of arthritis A newly detected defect in a genetic signaling pathway that leads to a hyperactive inflammatory response could help explain why some people are more prone to developing severe osteoarthritis than others, according to University of Utah Health scientists. They say the discovery could eventually lead to ways to detect early onset of the disease—even before symptoms appear—and the development of new treatments for the disease. The findings, among the first to suggest that an increased inflammatory response is a major risk factor in osteoarthritis, appear in the Annals of the Rheumatic Disea