On the Radar

The pick of the science news

Solar comet collision

Scientists in California have captured images of a comet colliding with the sun. Using readings from instruments aboard NASA’s twin Stereo spacecraft as well as ground-based observation data, the researchers were able to pinpoint the site of a predicted collision and capture the images.

“We believe this is the first time a comet has been tracked in 3D space this low down in the solar corona,” said Claire Raftery, a post-doctoral fellow newly arrived at UC Berkeley from Trinity College Dublin, in a statement.

Thermometer teeth

How warm was that woolly mammoth? Scientists have developed a new “paleothermometer” to find out – by looking at fossilised teeth and bones.

They found that within the “apatite” of such specimens, you can work out the previous owner’s body temperature by analysing the way particular carbon and oxygen isotopes clump together.

Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used the technique on two woolly mammoth specimens and found that when they were alive, the creatures would have had similar body temperatures to the modern Indian elephant, around 38 degrees Celsius.

Rhino and alligator specimens from 12 million years ago also had similar body temperatures to their modern equivalents, according to the study. The researchers now want to take the temperature of dinosaurs, they told Nature.

“This is an important step we think, both scientifically and philosophically. It’s certainly changed my views of the definitions of life and how life works

Craig Venter, who announced last week that he and colleagues had put together a bacterial genome using yeast and transplanted it into a bacterial cell to make a viable strain, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0