Science Glance
A spectacular fossil find in China - a prehistoric egg extravaganza from 120 million years ago - is providing unique insight into the lifestyle and gender differences of pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs.
Until now, only four pterosaur eggs had ever been found, and all were flattened during the process of fossilization.
But Chinese scientists said on Thursday they had unearthed five pterosaur eggs preserved beautifully in three dimensions at a site in northwestern China that also includes no fewer than 40 adult individuals of a newly identified species that lived in a bustling colony near a large freshwater lake.
Stunning fossil eggs provide insight on ancient flying reptiles
Millennials Are America's Most Godless Grown-Ups
While a plurality of Americans overall still believe in creationism, a majority of young adults believe in evolution.
Gallup regularly polls Americans on their beliefs about how human beings came to be. Overall opinions have stayed remarkably stable over time, with a plurality believing that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.
'Godzilla of Earths' identified
There is a new class of planet out there that astronomers are calling the "mega-Earth". It is an object with a hard surface like our own world but much, much bigger.
The necessity for the new designation follows the discovery of a planet which has a mass some 17 times that of Earth.
Known as Kepler-10c, it orbits a star about 560 light-years away. Scientists described its properties at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Boston.
They confess it is something of a head-scratcher.
Matter will be created from light within a year, claim scientists
Researchers have worked out how to make matter from pure light and are drawing up plans to demonstrate the feat within the next 12 months.
The theory underpinning the idea was first described 80 years ago by two physicists who later worked on the first atomic bomb. At the time they considered the conversion of light into matter impossible in a laboratory.
But in a report published on Sunday, physicists at Imperial College London claim to have cracked the problem using high-powered lasers and other equipment now available to scientists.
Wyoming rejects science standards, won't teach man-made climate change
Wyoming, the U.S.'s leading coal-producer, has become the first state to reject new K-12 science standards put forward by national education groups after officials objected to the teaching of man-made global warming as a fact.
The Wyoming Board of Education decided recently that the Next Generation Science Standards needed more review after questions were raised over the treatment of global warming.
Board President Ron Micheli said the review will look into whether "we can't get some standards that are Wyoming standards and standards we all can be proud of."
Universe evolution recreated in lab
An international team of researchers has created the most complete visual simulation of how the Universe evolved.
The computer model shows how the first galaxies formed around clumps of a mysterious, invisible substance called dark matter. It is the first time that the Universe has been modelled so extensively and to such great resolution.
The research has been published in the journal Nature.
Stephen Hawking: Dismissing artificial intelligence would be a mistake
Stephen Hawking, in an article inspired by the new Johnny Depp flick Transcendence, said it would be the "worst mistake in history" to dismiss the threat of artificial intelligence.
In a paper he co-wrote with University at California, Berkeley computer-science professor Stuart Russell, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professors Max Tegmark and Frank Wilczek, Hawking said cited several achievements in the field of artificial intelligence, including self-driving cars, Siri and the computer that won Jeopardy!
"Such achievements will probably pale against what the coming decades will bring," the article in Britain's Independent said.
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