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Located in Austrailia, the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope picked up the strange signal stemming from Proxima Centauri.

CSIRO/A. Cherney.

On 29 April 2019, the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, picked up an unusual signal while searching for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. The telescope was observing Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the sun and host to a number of exoplanets that are potentially habitable.

Scientists from Denmark and China have estimated germline mutation rates across vertebrates by sequencing and comparing genetic samples from 151 mother, father, and offspring trios from 68 species of mammals, fishes, birds and reptiles. A bioinformatics pipeline was designed to read, analyze and compare the genome mutations that occur yearly and between generations in each species.

The research was published March 1, 2023, in the journal Nature.

Knowing the germline mutation rate could allow a greater understanding of evolutionary drivers and be used to estimate when a species first arose. Despite the variety of evolutionary paths seen in 68 different species, researchers found the germline mutation rate to be relatively conserved.

An international team of researchers stumbled upon an exploding supernova in a distant spiral galaxy, using data from the first year of interstellar observation by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.