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South China Morning Post
a day ago
- Science
- South China Morning Post
Chinese study of feather fossils reveals how birds beat dinosaurs in conquering the sky
Dinosaur feathers found trapped in Burmese amber have shed new light on the evolution of flight feathers, an essential step that allowed early birds to surpass their dinosaur relatives in conquering the skies, a Chinese study has found. Advertisement Through a detailed structural study of feathers dating back 99 million years to the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years), the researchers were able to gain insight into how feathers evolved during this era. 'Feathers are critical for the flight of birds,' the team led by Feathers are critical for the flight of birds,' the team led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Bulletin on May 13. An essential feature of the evolution of birds was the development of feathers that helped generate thrust and lift. While modern birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs , scientists believe that most feathered dinosaurs in the ancient world did not have the same ability to fly, though there has been evidence that some species could glide or have powered flight. Advertisement When most people picture flying dinosaurs, the creatures they imagine with large, fleshy wings are actually non-dinosaur reptiles that lived in the same era, such as the pterosaurs.
The Star
08-05-2025
- Science
- The Star
China fires up powerful radar to search for lunar ice that can make or break moon race
Water ice is likely to exist at the moon's south pole, but it would be fragmented, scattered and buried deep beneath the surface, posing significant challenges for detection and extraction, according to a new study by Chinese researchers. Using powerful Earth-based instruments, including the world's largest radio telescope and one of the most advanced radar systems, the team estimated that ice made up no more than 6 per cent of the material within the top 10 metres (33 feet) of lunar soil in the region. The ice was thought to exist as metre-sized chunks buried 5-7 metres underground in the moon's most promising 'cold traps', known as permanently shadowed regions. Smaller, isolated patches might also lie near the surface, the team wrote in the latest issue of the Chinese journal, Science Bulletin. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. The findings, the researchers wrote, could help in the selection of landing sites for future lunar missions and inform the design of the proposed China-led research base on the moon. Hu Sen, a planetary geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing, called the work 'impressive'. He said that using China's newly built incoherent scatter radar in Sanya (SYISR) alongside the FAST telescope to search for water ice was a 'really creative approach'. While Hu was not involved in the research, he noted that the results aligned with previous impact experiment findings and added new evidence that water ice existed on the moon. 'The study also opened a new pathway to investigate water abundances on the moon,' he said. So far, no liquid water has been found on the moon. 'What we do know is that some water is bound within the lunar soil as 'structural water', and some is preserved as ice in cold traps inside permanently shadowed regions,' Hu said on Wednesday. But the moon's surface is an unforgiving environment, marked by a high vacuum, strong radiation and extreme temperature swings. 'Before anyone can actually make use of that water, we need to understand where it comes from, how it's distributed and how it's stored,' he said. One of China's key science goals for the coming Chang'e-7 mission, set to launch next year, is to determine the amount, origin and physical state of water ice at the moon's south pole. The mission is expected to significantly advance understanding of lunar water, he said. Still, the topic remains contentious. There is no conclusive proof that water ice exists in usable quantities on the moon. Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at Arizona State University, said he believed there was 'extremely little' water on the moon. 'All the talk about what a valuable resource this is seems like baloney to me,' he said on Tuesday. However, planetary geologist Clive Neal at the University of Notre Dame in the United States suggested that the actual amount of water ice at the lunar south pole could be higher than what this study detected. Radar only covered limited areas, mostly crater slopes, he said. 'It is expected that the water ice would be in the bottom of the craters,' he said, adding that the areas visible to the radar were also affected by Earthshine, which could cause any surface ice to evaporate. In recent years, researchers have paired high-powered, large-aperture incoherent scatter radars – typically used to study the ionosphere – with large radio telescopes to capture imagery of the moon's surface, according to the paper's lead author Li Mingyuan, of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics. For instance, the Arecibo planetary radar system in Puerto Rico and the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia have jointly produced lunar polar images with resolution ranging from 20 to 150 metres, according to Li. Building on that approach, Li and his team used the Sanya incoherent scatter radar and the Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) to carry out a ground-based radar imaging experiment focused on the moon's south pole. The SYISR radar, with its wide beam, was used to track the moon's centre of mass and scan its entire near side. Meanwhile, the narrower beam of the FAST telescope focused specifically on the south pole region to receive radar echoes, he said. Thanks to FAST's high sensitivity, the team could produce radar images covering latitudes of 84 and 90 degrees south, at a resolution of about 500 metres by 1.2km. Li noted that their analysis assumed the radar signals were caused by water ice. However, one of the key parameters – the circular polarisation ratio, which measures how much of the radar signal bounces back in a rotated form – can also be elevated by surface roughness or buried rocks, making it difficult to distinguish ice from non-ice terrain. The study offered a preliminary estimate, Li said, and further work required integrating data from multiple instruments or radar frequencies to improve the accuracy of identifying water ice. More from South China Morning Post: For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2025.
South China Morning Post
08-05-2025
- Science
- South China Morning Post
China fires up powerful radar to search for lunar ice that can make or break moon race
Water ice is likely to exist at the moon's south pole, but it would be fragmented, scattered and buried deep beneath the surface, posing significant challenges for detection and extraction, according to a new study by Chinese researchers. Advertisement Using powerful Earth-based instruments, including the world's largest radio telescope and one of the most advanced radar systems, the team estimated that ice made up no more than 6 per cent of the material within the top 10 metres (33 feet) of lunar soil in the region. The ice was thought to exist as metre-sized chunks buried 5-7 metres underground in the moon's most promising 'cold traps', known as permanently shadowed regions. Smaller, isolated patches might also lie near the surface, the team wrote in the latest issue of the Chinese journal, Science Bulletin. 01:57 China's Chang'e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from moon's far side China's Chang'e-6 mission returns to Earth with first samples from moon's far side The findings, the researchers wrote, could help in the selection of landing sites for future lunar missions and inform the design of the proposed China-led research base on the moon. Hu Sen, a planetary geochemist at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing, called the work 'impressive'. He said that using China's newly built incoherent scatter radar in Sanya (SYISR) alongside the FAST telescope to search for water ice was a 'really creative approach'. While Hu was not involved in the research, he noted that the results aligned with previous impact experiment findings and added new evidence that water ice existed on the moon. Advertisement 'The study also opened a new pathway to investigate water abundances on the moon,' he said. So far, no liquid water has been found on the moon. 'What we do know is that some water is bound within the lunar soil as 'structural water', and some is preserved as ice in cold traps inside permanently shadowed regions,' Hu said on Wednesday.
The Hill
11-04-2025
- Science
- The Hill
‘Stretchable' toothpaste-like battery offers flexible future for gadgets
Rigid, bulky batteries could one day be replaced by soft, flexible ones, a new paper argues. Scientists at a Swedish university have created a new form of soft, fluid-based battery that can be shaped to meet any form, according to findings published on Friday in Science Advances. 'The texture is a bit like toothpaste,' coauthor Aiman Rahmanudin said in a statement. That flexible quality means the ability to 3D-print the battery in any form — opening up the way for 'a new type of technology,' Rahmanudin added. In its current form, the battery is far from ready for industrial use. It can store just under 1 volt — less than 8 percent the voltage of a standard car battery. But Rahmnudin argued that it has demonstrated a breakthrough in flexibility — and that increasing the voltage can be done by adding commonly available metals, like zinc or manganese. Consumer product forecasters see a pressing need for such solutions. Some industry estimates suggest that nearly 40 billion devices worldwide will be connected to the internet by 2033 — twice the number as in 2023. That forecast demand for consumer electronics, wearable medical devices or soft robotics has driven research into new kinds of flexible batteries beyond the current metallic boxes and cylinders that now define the market. New technologies require not just long storage life but 'power sources that can bend and flex without compromising performance or durability,' according to a December survey in Science Bulletin That made it essential to design battery materials 'that can endure repetitive folding, twisting, and stretching,' the scientists in that December study noted. In the race to provide such materials, scientists are experimenting with flexible batteries using both familiar chemistries — lithium-ion and sodium-ion — as well as more novel ones, like zinc-ion, or a combination of zinc and magnesium-oxygen. Friday's study details an attempt to solve what lead researcher Rahmanudin described as the core paradox: bigger-capacity batteries require thicker electrodes — the conductive material that carries the charge from positive to negative poles. That property means that more energy storage tends to come at the price of more rigidity. The Swedish researchers say they have solved this problem by making liquid electrodes — based on a combination of flexible, conductive plastics and lignin, a polymer found in wood and bark. Lignin, which the scientists extracted from paper pulp, is a raw material plentiful in any country with a big paper industry — which includes Sweden, but also the U.S. and battery-producing giant China. That material offers a valuable upcycling of a waste product, said Mohsen Mohammadi, one of the lead authors on the paper. 'By repurposing a byproduct like lignin into a high value commodity such as a battery material we contribute to a more circular model,' he said.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
125 million-year-old fossil of giant venomous scorpion that lived alongside dinosaurs discovered in China
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A known treasure trove of Early Cretaceous fossils has turned up a never-before-seen species of scorpion that lived around 125 million years ago. The venomous scorpion was larger than many ancient — and modern — scorpion species. Researchers believe it would've been a key species in the food chain, gobbling up spiders, lizards and even small mammals that lived in its ancient ecosystem. It is just the fourth terrestrial scorpion fossil to be found in China and the first Mesozoic-era scorpion fossil found in the country, researchers reported Jan. 24 in the journal Science Bulletin. Most scorpions from the Mesozoic era (252 million to 66 million years ago) are preserved in amber. Fossilized scorpions are much rarer because these arachnids live under rocks and branches, where they're less likely to be trapped in sediment and fossilize, said study co-author Diying Huang, a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China. The scientists found the fossil in the Yixian Formation, a hotbed of Early Cretaceous fossils in northeastern China. The team named the new species Jeholia longchengi. "Jeholia" refers to the Jehol Biota, the ecosystem of northeast China in the Early Cretaceous about 133 million to 120 million years ago, and "longchengi" refers to the Longcheng district of Chaoyang, China, where the fossil currently resides. J. longchengi was roughly 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, making it something of a giant of its time. "Other Mesozoic scorpions are much smaller, most of them less than half [the size] of the new species," Huang told Live Science in an email. Related: What if a giant asteroid had not wiped out the dinosaurs? J. longchengi has a pentagonal body and rounded spiracles, which are the openings in its body that allowed it to breathe. These characteristics are similar to those found in some families of modern-day scorpions that inhabit other parts of Asia. But unlike those families, J. longchengi has fairly long legs and slim pedipalps, or pincers, that lack spurs along a segment called the patella. RELATED STORIES —World's tiniest cat was a palm-sized tiddler that lived in China 300,000 years ago —Scientists discover rare venom-spraying scorpion in Colombia —Enormous skull of 200-million-year-old giant dinosaur discovered in China Fossils of many other animals — including dinosaurs, birds, mammals and insects — have been found in the Jehol Biota, suggesting a complex food web. Larger mammals and dinosaurs may have preyed upon J. longchengi, while the scorpion's diet may have included insects, spiders, frogs and even small lizards or mammals, the researchers wrote in the study. The scorpion's mouthparts aren't preserved in the fossil, though, so it's hard to know for sure what they ate. Discoveries of additional fossil specimens could clear up the species' role in the ecosystem and its place in the food web, the researchers wrote. "If placed in today's environment, it might become a natural predator of many small animals, and could even hunt the young of small vertebrates," Huang told China's state run Xinhua news agency. The fossil is being stored at the Fossil Valley Museum in Chaoyang, China.
