(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have imaged a very young brown dwarf, or failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star. The discovery is expected to shed light on the early stages of solar system formation.

Astronomers have imaged a very young brown dwarf, or failed star, in a tight orbit around a young nearby sun-like star.

An international team led by University of Hawaii astronomers Beth Biller and Michael Liu with help from University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and UA graduate students Eric Nielsen, Jared Males and Andy Skemer made the rare find using the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager, or NICI, on the international 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile.

A new article in press of the journal Earth and Planetary Science Lettersunveils groundbreaking research on the hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate rocks in the Nili Fossae region of Mars. The findings may provide a link to evidence of living organisms on Mars, roughly 4 billion years ago in the Noachian period.

The paper "Hydrothermal formation of Clay-Carbonate alteration assemblages in the Nili Fossae region of Mars", by Adrian J. Brown et al, suggests that carbonate bearing rocks found in the Nili Fossae region of Mars are made up of hydrothermally altered ultramafic (perhaps komatiitic) rocks.

It takes a twisted engineering mind to come up with something this brilliant: a biomimetic mold constructed from fly eyes. One particular type of fly eye has just the right shape that could be perfect for manufacturing efficient solar cells.

Lakhtakia and a team of Penn State researchers came up with a promising solution. First they picked corneas from blowflies because this common type of fly has ideal eyes for solar cell applications. According to a description from PSU, "Blowflies have compound eyes that are roughly hemispherical; but within that half sphere, the surface is covered by macroscale hexagonal eyes with nanoscale features."

A new technique blasts holes in cells to deliver vaccines or drugs to fight cancer at light-speed.

Drugs and vaccines could one day make their way into your body at the speed of light. Scientists from Georgia Tech can now blast a hole in a cell, place a molecule inside and seal it back up a split second later using a laser pulse.

The new technique could deliver drugs, vaccines and other molecules that otherwise wouldn't be able to get past a cell's defences.

Internationally-renowned dinosaur hunter Phil Manning, from the University of Manchester, and his team are hoping to bag a Triceratops skeleton from a 'secret location' they've found in the South Dakota Badlands, according to Manning.

He and his colleagues believe at least three skeletons of this iconic dinosaur are gently weathering in 65-million-year-old rocks at the undisclosed site.

Robotic devices equipped with electronic sensors, laser detection and ranging.

Snakes can creep and they can crawl, but they're not very good at defusing bombs or going on search-and-rescue missions. Snake robots, however, might be a different story.

In a project called the Robotic Tentacle Manipulator, engineers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory are developing snake-like autonomous robots that can go into dangerous situations in place of live soldiers to aid in search and rescue missions and to inspect potential threats from Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs.

They went to investigate solar wind-stirred storms in our planet’s magnetic field, but, after working for three years, two NASA solar-powered probes faced a dark demise, trapped in the Earth’s shadow. NASA researchers now think they can give the twin satellites another shot by altering their courses and sending them instead to study the moon.

NASA launched the probes in 2007 as a set of five identical satellites in the THEMIS Mission (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms), meant to orbit Earth and send information during brief (2-3 hour) “substorms” when the magnetic field surrounding the Earth releases stored energy from solar winds. To understand the start of these “space tornadoes” responsible for the northern and southern lights, NASA placed the probes in very precise orbits, but for two craft that meant, one day, they would face prolonged battery-draining time in the Earth’s shadow.

Researchers camped on the Greenland ice sheet hit bedrock this week after almost three years of drilling, reaching a depth of 8,000 feet. They hope that the ice they’ve uncovered from some 120,000 years ago, might give them a better understanding of what a warmer future might look like, if Greenland has less ice and the sea level rises.

The team, which is part of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project, is looking to learn more about carbon dioxide levels during the Eemian period, when global temperatures were over 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea level was about 15 feet higher. They believe these conditions might mirror effects caused by the earth’s changing climate during the next century.

What's a Stone Age axe doing in an Iron Age tomb? The archaeologists Olle Hemdorff at the University of Stavanger's Museum of Archaeology and Eva Thäte are researching older objects in younger graves. They have found a pattern.

"If one finds something once, it's accidental. If it is found twice, it's puzzling. If found thrice, there is a pattern", the archaeologists Olle Hemdorff and Eva Thäte say.

A settlement dating back about 7000 years has been discovered by a hill near the village of Ivanovo, in Shoumen municipality, in eastern Bulgaria, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported on July 26 2010.

The settlement, 900 sq m in area, lies between two rivers on the south face of the hill. In spite of its natural defences, the settlement was fortified with a defensive wall of "unusual shape", BNT said.

"The shape of the fortification was not circular or oval-like, which was typical for the time but an irregular pattern resembling an octagon," archaeologist Svetlana Venelinova said in a television interview for BNT.

ScienceDaily (July 26, 2010) — Archaeological research in East Timor has unearthed the bones of the biggest rat that ever lived, with a body weight around six kilograms.

The cave excavations also yielded a total of 13 species of rodents, 11 of which are new to science. Eight of the rats weighed a kilogram or more.

"East Indonesia is a hot spot for rodent evolution. We want international attention on conservation in the area," CSIRO's Dr Ken Aplin says.

For the first time in Israel, a document has been uncovered containing a law code that parallels portions of the famous Code of Hammurabi. The code is written on fragments of a cuneiform tablet, dating from the 18th-17th centuries B.C.E in the Middle Bronze Age, that were found in Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeological excavations this summer at Hazor, south of Kiryat Shmonah, in northern Israel.

The Hazor excavations, known as the Selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael Yadin, are under the direction of Prof. Amnon Ben-Tor and Dr. Sharon Zuckerman of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Previous excavations were directed at the site by the late Prof. Yigael Yadin in the 1950s and 1960s.

LONDON, (CAIS) -- An ancient network of secret tunnels and dwellings has been discovered in Hamedan Province.The Iranian province lies in an elevated region, with the 'Alvand' mountains, running from the north west to the south west.

The discovered complex is located near the village of Arzanfud, 25 kilometres southeast of the provincial capital-city of Hamedan, the Hamedan Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department (HCHTHD) announced Saturday in a press release.

Stone tools, flakes and the remains of a final feast at the site in Wiltshire hint that the huge sarsens that now stand at Stonehenge were brought to Marden Henge first.

The last revellers seem to have cleared up scrupulously after the final party at Marden Henge some 4,500 years ago.

They scoured the rectangular building and the smart white chalk platform on top of the earth bank, with its spectacular view towards the river Avon in one direction, and the hills from which the giant sarsen stones were brought to Stonehenge in the other.

The recent decoding of a cryptic cup, the excavation of ancient Jerusalemtunnels, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The new clues hint that the scrolls, which include some of the oldest known biblical documents, may have been the textual treasures of several groups, hidden away during wartime—and may even be "the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple," which held the Ark of the Covenant, according to the Bible.

Director of Archaeological Park Viminacium, Miomir Korac, has said for Tanjug while major excavation was taking place at the Roman amphitheatre site at Viminacium, a sculpture made of jade and of excellent craftsmanship was discovered.

“Only a few days ago we had the discovery of jade figurine more than 35 centimetres long, but this one, just like that first one, is unfortunately not complete. What is fascinating, though, is that it’s made out of one piece and of jade and that the craftsmanship is excellent. This points to the fact the workshop must have been at this very place,” said Korac.

It is the second complete cranium to be found at the site.

A 500,000 year old complete cranium has been recovered from the Atapuerca side at Sima de los Huesos de Atapuerca in Burgos. It’s the second complete cranium to be found at the site which shows the presence of Homo Antecessor in the region.

Sources at the Atapuerca Foundation say that once the practical entire cranium has been recovered the meticulous reconstruction of the bones will be undertaken during the winter.

To better understand the ancient Roman world, one archaeologist looks at the graffiti, love notes and poetry alike, left behind by Pompeians.

Rebecca Benefiel stepped into the tiny dark room on the first floor of the House of Maius Castricius. Mosquitoes whined. Huge moths flapped around her head. And – much higher on the ick meter—her flashlight revealed a desiccated corpse that looked as if it was struggling to rise from the floor. Nonetheless, she moved closer to the walls and searched for aberrations in the stucco. She soon found what she was looking for: a string of names and a cluster of numbers, part of the vibrant graffiti chitchat carried on by the citizens of Pompeii before Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and buried their city in a light pumice stone called lapilli.

Tim Gent and his team have discovered two roman forts on the site of the old St Loyes School Topsham Road Exeter.

EXETER archaeologists believe they have found a second Roman fort on a development site in the city.

As the Echo has already reported, a team of city archaeologists has unearthed a previously unknown fort on the site of the former St Loye's campus off Topsham Road.

Bar Ilan University archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a Philistine temple in the ancient city of Gath, home of the Biblical Goliath, buried in one of the largest tels (ancient ruin mounds) in Israel.

The temple and a number of ritual items dating back to the 10th century BCE were discovered at Tel Tsafit (Tell es-Safit/Gath) by Professor Aren Maeir of BIU's Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and his international team. The tel is located about halfway between Ashkelon and Jerusalem, near Kiryat Gat along the southern coastal plain.