First North American hunters 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, speared mastodon fossil shows

A mastodon rib with the embedded bone projectile point. (A) Closeup view. (B) Reconstruction showing the bone point with the broken tip. The thin layer represents the exterior of the rib. (C) CT X-ray showing the long shaft of the point from the exterior to the interior of the rib. (D) The entire rib fragment …

Prehistoric humans not wiped out by comet, say researchers

Comet explosions did not end the prehistoric human culture, known as Clovis, in North America 13,000 years ago, according to research published in the journal Geophysical Monograph Series. Researchers from Royal Holloway university, together with Sandia National Laboratories and 13 other universities across the United States and Europe, have found evidence which rebuts the belief …

Nanodiamonds are forever: Did comet collision leave layer of nanodiamonds across Earth?

Most of North America’s megafauna — mastodons, short-faced bears, giant ground sloths, saber-toothed cats and American camels and horses — disappeared close to 13,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene period. The cause of this massive extinction has long been debated by scientists who, until recently, could only speculate as to why. A …

Early growth of giant galaxy, just 3 billion years after the Big Bang, revealed

Astronomers have for the first time gotten a glimpse of the earliest stages of massive galaxy construction. The building site, dubbed “Sparky,” is a developing galaxy containing a dense core that is blazing with the light of millions of newborn stars which are forming at a ferocious rate. The discovery was made possible through combining …

Scientists grow an organ in an animal from cells created in lab

  Laboratory-grown replacement organs have moved a step closer with the completion of a new study. Scientists have grown a fully functional organ from transplanted laboratory-created cells in a living animal for the first time. The researchers have created a thymus — an organ next to the heart that produces immune cells known as T …

A NEW PLANET

An international team of astronomers has discovered a planet slightly larger than Jupiter that orbits a star 500 light years from Earth. A super-duper telescope was not even required; they found the planet using several small telescopes much like those used by amateur astronomers. The new planet is named TrES-2 because it is the second …