DNA Advances Spur Resurrection Debate Today the only place to see woolly mammoths and people side-by-side is on The Flintstones or in the movies. But researchers are on the verge of piecing together complete genomes of long-dead species such as Neandertals and mammoths. The full article in National Geographic
שן אחת הובילה לזיהויה של מומיה עתיקה כמלכה חתשפסות, ששלטה במצרים לפני כ-3,500 שנה, כך הודיע אתמול (רביעי) האחראי על רשות העתיקות במצרים, הד"ר זאהי חוואס. התגלית הוגדרה כחשובה ביותר מאז גילוי קברו של תות ענח אמון ב-1922. הכתבה המלאה ב-"הארץ" וגם ב-BBC
Astrophysicists have found a star-like object with a surface temperature just one tenth that of the Sun. The cold object is known as a brown dwarf: a "failed" star that never achieved the mass required to begin nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The full article in BBC News
המטאור התפוצץ באטמוספירה מעל איזור נידח ברוסיה בעוצמה של 1,000 פצצות הירושימה. כעת צוות מדענים מאוניברסיטת בולוניה טוען כי אגם בקרבת הפיצוץ הוא למעשה מכתש שנוצר כתוצאה מפגיעת סלע. הכתבה המלאה ב-BBC
Domestic cats around the world can trace their origins back to the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, according to a genetic study in Science journal. The full article in BBC News
June 25, 2007—A fossil skull recently uncovered in Peru reveals that penguins about the size of people roamed the country's Atacama Desert more than 30 million years ago. The newly described species, Icadyptes salasi, is shown above next to a skull of the only modern penguin living in Peru, Spheniscus humboldti. The full article in National Geographic
Scientists successfully transfer the entire genetic code of one germ to another, bringing them a step closer to synthesizing life The full article in Scientific American
Mysterious lunar flashes match up geographically with puffs of radon gas Strange, bright flashes observed on the moon for centuries and often dismissed as the lunar equivalent of UFOs may in fact be emissions of volcanic gas. A researcher says he has reviewed the evidence for so-called lunar transients and found them to occur only in areas of the moon that belch radon gas, suggesting that the flashes could be the result of dust stirred up by such emissions—possibly volcanic in origin. The full article in Scientific American