Science news this week: James Webb telescope finds a never-before-seen substance, China’s ‘Great Green Wall’ grows faster than natural trees, and a Medici murder mystery is solved

A telescope floats above Earth on the left, and three women inspect a skeleton on the right.

This week’s science news was about activities in space, including reports of The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) picked up a signal from a mysterious, never-before-seen object on Pluto and Titan.. The space telescope detected a characteristic absorption line in the spectra of these worlds’ atmospheres, revealing the distinctive trace of a unique and unknown …

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Diminutive species ‘the Hobbit’ did not hunt or control fire, deepening the mystery of its ancestry, dwarf elephant bones reveal

Diminutive species 'the Hobbit' did not hunt or control fire, deepening the mystery of its ancestry, dwarf elephant bones reveal

Archaeologists have discovered that tiny, now extinct humans known as “Hobbits” were scavengers who dined on pygmy elephants after they were best cut down by Komodo dragons. This discovery overturns that notion homo floresiensisA human species that arrived on the Indonesian island of Flores at least 700,000 years ago hunted large game. First discovered in …

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Malaria-Causing Protozoa Detected in Medici Remains

Nameplate from the tomb of Grand Duke Francesco de Medici

Nameplate from the tomb of Grand Duke Francesco de Medici New Haven, Connecticut—According to a statement issued by Yale UniversityResearchers at Yale University and the University of Pisa identified an unknown strain Plasmodium falciparum Among the bones of Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, who died of malaria in 1562. His brother, Grand Duke Francesco de’ Medici, …

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‘It’s more than a hope, it’s a guarantee’: The Rubin Observatory’s 10-year movie of the universe is about to ‘blow our minds,’ chief scientist says

'It's more than a hope, it's a guarantee': The Rubin Observatory's 10-year movie of the universe is about to 'blow our minds,' chief scientist says

On a dark mountaintop in Chile, the world’s largest digital camera has started filming its masterpiece. This Tuesday (June 30) with scientists Vera C. Rubin Observatory announced that the facility’s ambitious Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) has officially begun. Every night for the next 10 years, the observatory’s car-sized LSST Camera It will …

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The hantavirus outbreak is over, WHO declares

The hantavirus outbreak is over, WHO declares

The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that an outbreak of hantavirus occurred on a cruise ship in April, killing three people and raising fears of further spread. “Today, the last contact of a person exposed to hantavirus on the cruise ship MV Hondius completed his quarantine period, tested negative and returned home. No further …

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