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Penguins are no strangers to climate change. Their life history has been shaped by fluctuations in temperature, and their bodies are highly specialized for some of the most extreme conditions on Earth. However, scientists fear the penguin’s evolutionary path may have stalled, thanks to the lowest evolutionary rate ever detected in birds. An international team of researchers has just published one of the most comprehensive studies on penguin evolution to date, which is the first to integrate data from living and fossil penguin species. The research reveals a general chaotic penguin life history, with three-quarters of all known penguin species – now represented only by fossils – already extinct. “Over 60 million years, this iconic bird has evolved into a highly specialized marine predator, and is now well-adapted in some of the most extreme environments on Earth,” the authors wrote. “However, as their evolutionary history reveals, they now stand as guardians highlighting the vulnerabil

A newly discovered star is so close to the center of our galaxy’s supermassive black hole that it completes an orbit in just four years. It is the shortest orbit for any of the stars around Sagittarius A*. This is an oval-shaped journey around a black hole that takes the star to an orbital speed of more than 2.5 percent of the speed of light. This discovery adds exciting new information about the strange dynamics of the center of the Milky Way. Although the center of our galaxy is quite quiet compared to other galaxies, the environment around Sgr A* is an extreme place. Black holes are monsters, which have a mass about 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Before astronomers confirmed its existence with live images, scientists deduced its existence and calculated its mass based on the star locked in orbit around Sgr A*. The star, called S2, is just one of a group of stars known as S-stars, which follow a long, sharp elliptical orbit around Sgr A*, with a black hole at one end of the

The heart of the Milky Way appears to be a hotspot for molecules that combine to form RNA. A new survey of the thick molecular cloud that shrouds the galactic center has revealed the presence of various nitriles – organic molecules that are often toxic in isolation, but are also molecular building blocks essential for life. The increase in prebiotic molecules (molecules involved in the emergence of life) identified at the center of galaxies, particularly those associated with RNA, has implications for our understanding of how life emerged in the Universe – and how it happened on Earth. “Here we show that the chemistry occurring in the interstellar medium is able to efficiently form some of the nitriles, which are key molecular precursors of the ‘RNA World’ scenario,” explains astrobiologist Víctor Rivilla of the Spanish National Research Council and National Institutes. Aerospace Technology in Spain. Exactly how life arose on Earth is a mystery that basic scientists are eager to achie