Science Daily

• The ice blasting from Saturn's moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized

  Enceladus may naturally separate and concentrate chemicals from its hidden ocean as droplets slowly freeze and shatter on their way into space. The process could explain Cassini’s puzzling ice-grain chemistry while giving future spacecraft a powerful advantage in searching for organic compounds and clues to life.

• Earth’s day isn’t exactly 24 hours. The reason may lie deep inside the planet

  Scientists may have solved why the length of Earth’s day changes by a few milliseconds over decades. Subtle shifts in the inner core appear to tug on the mantle, revealing a surprisingly dynamic world thousands of kilometers beneath our feet.

• Scientists expected these Galápagos sea turtles to wander. They stayed put

  Yellow-morph green sea turtles in the Galápagos surprised scientists by staying remarkably close to home instead of making the long journeys typically associated with sea turtles. Satellite tracking showed that none left the marine reserve during the study, revealing just how important the islands’ coastal habitats may be to their survival.

• Scientists find new virus behind mysterious tick illness

  Scientists have discovered a new tick-borne virus in China that causes flu-like illness and may account for previously unexplained cases of fever, fatigue, digestive problems, and low platelet counts. Most patients with ALTNV alone recovered, but coinfections with another dangerous tick-borne virus were linked to more serious complications.

• Scientists were wrong about this strange mammal for nearly 40 years

  A beautifully preserved fossil from Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has solved a mystery that puzzled paleontologists for nearly 40 years. Tamirkhan balcarceli shows that zhelestids were not early relatives of modern placental mammals, despite having teeth that seemed to suggest they were. Instead, the rabbit-like animal belonged to a separate lineage of small Cretaceous mammals.