First Pass

11 stories from 6 sources

New discoveries redraw biology and the frontier of space

Day’s Recap

Supporting Articles

Fossils from South Africa's Drimolen Cave include a Homo erectus skull fragment dated to about 2 million years ago, suggesting the species appeared in southern Africa roughly 200,000 years earlier than previously believed. The same site shows Paranthropus robustus developing larger teeth and stronger chewing muscles as environmental conditions changed.

8:47 AMScienceDaily

Researchers studying a previously unknown protist from a freshwater pond found that two genetic signals normally used to end genes instead encode two different amino acids. The discovery challenges the assumption that these signals evolved together and perform nearly universal termination functions.

9:31 AMScienceDaily

The Einstein Probe detected nearly 10 minutes of soft X-ray emission after a short gamma-ray burst, revealing a post-merger phase that earlier missions may have missed. The prolonged signal could have come from a newly formed magnetar and may provide another way to identify neutron star mergers alongside gravitational waves.

6:06 AMScienceDaily

Other Developments

A curated list of other prominent stories from this day.

Four astronauts completed an eight-month mission and returned to Earth in a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off California.

5:55 PMAl Jazeera

SpaceX returned four astronauts to Earth after an eight-month mission aboard the recovery ship. They had launched in February to replace four station occupants sent home early after one became ill.

4:42 PMFortune

A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts splashed down off California after completing their mission aboard the International Space Station.

1:52 PMBloomberg Markets

Video shows US scientist Karl Deisseroth telling his son and two daughters that he had won the Nobel Prize. The children react with visible excitement to the announcement.

9:20 AMAl Jazeera

Scientists identified a bright yellow coral off Costa Rica that could not be placed in any existing coral family. Genetic analysis showed that the meter-tall colonies represent a previously unknown evolutionary lineage, which researchers named Laurinque elenya.

9:18 AMScienceDaily

NASA is launching three investigations to identify underground shelters, locate hidden lunar ice, and measure hazardous surface conditions. The research is intended to determine where astronauts could safely establish a sustained presence on the Moon and prepare for later missions to Mars.

8:19 AMScienceDaily

Make it yours

Build Your First Pass.

Pick your topics, set your cadence, and receive your personalized First Pass in your inbox. It’s that simple!