Year in Review 2016 | World's most heat resistant material, largest dinosaur's fossil make up year's major discoveries

World's most heat resistant material (Representational Image)

Scientists have identified materials that can withstand temperatures of nearly 4,000 degrees Celsius, an advance that may pave the way for improved heat resistant shielding for the faster-than-ever hypersonic space vehicles. Researchers from Imperial College London in the UK discovered that the melting point of hafnium carbide is the highest ever recorded for a material.

110 sites in Pakistan that are 30,000-year-old (Representational Image)

Archaeological department in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has unearthed as many as 110 sites that are 30,000-year-old. The sites include some that are of Buddhist importance. Archaeological department with the help of Political Administration and Pakistan Army made the discoveries, Political Agent Khyber Khalid Mehmood said. Eight sites that are of significant Buddhist importance have also been found in the survey, said Khalid Mehmood.

Mystery of alien noise coming from Mariana Trench (Representational Image)

Mysterious sounds coming from Mariana Trench - the deepest point on Earth were recorded long time back. The sounds were creepy and took everyone as surprise. Now, the piece of news is that the scientists claimed to have solved the mystery behind it as they say they have identified the source from where the alien sound came. An autonomous vehicle had recorded the 3.5-second audio that was mysterious and creepy as hell. The sound was captured several times between 2014 and 2015. The challenge for the scientists was to find the source of the sound - whether natural or unnatural.

Dark matter made up of axions (Representational Image)

Dark matter is a mystery. The only thing known is that it constitutes 85% of the matter of the universe. Now Hungarian and German scientists have discovered some information on a dark matter particle that has been postulated, called the axion. Scientists have discovered that axions can have the mass between 50 and 1500 micro electron volts, that is, some ten billion times lighter than the electron. This computation has been published in the journal Nature. These calculations were done numerically using a (Bluegen/Q) super computer, JuQueen, housed in the Julich Supercomputer Centre in Germany.

Fossilised brain tissue of dinosaur (Representational Image)

A fossil hunter in the Sussex had discovered an unassuming brown pebble more than a decade ago. According to scientists, it has now been confirmed as the first example of fossilised brain tissue from a dinosaur. The tissues resemble those seen in modern crocodiles and birds, said the study reported in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London. The fossilised brain, found by fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks near Bexhill in Sussex in 2004, is most likely from a species similar to Iguanodon – a large herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous Period, about 133 million years ago, according to the study.The structure of the fossilised brain, and in particular that of the meninges, shows similarities with the brains of modern-day descendants of dinosaurs, namely birds and crocodiles, the study said.

World's largest dinosaur's fossil (Representational Image)

Palaeontologists have unearthed world’s largest dinosaur fossil in North Eastern Australia. The fossil is approximately 105 million years. It belongs to species Savannasaurus elliottorum, a type of sauropod. According to researchers, these were the largest animals on earth. The fossil discovered is 14 meters long from head to tail. Like all other dinosaurs of sauropod family, it ate plants. Also, it had a very long neck. Another discovery is of the sample of different sauropod called Diamantinasaurus matilda. Paleontologists have nicknamed the dinosaurs as Wade and Matilda. According to scientists, the two species lived in Australia exclusively but they moved in North Australia from South America.

Nano scale device that can mimic the human brain (Representational Image)

Scientists have developed a new nanoscale device which could be used to power artificial systems that can mimic the human brain. The device called a memristor may find applications in pervasive sensing technologies to fuel real-time monitoring in harsh or inaccessible environments; a highly desirable capability for enabling the Internet of Things vision, researchers said. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) exhibit learning abilities and can perform tasks which are difficult for conventional computing systems, such as pattern recognition, on-line learning and classification.

Bothriolepis rex a 370 million-year-old species of giantfish (Representational Image)

B rex a 370 million-year-old species of giantfish with external, bony armoured plates covering their head,shoulders and front fins has been discovered by Scientists. Researchers identified the new fish from fossils first discovered in 2000 in Canada. The site features fossils from the Devonian Period, a timepredating most dinosaurs by hundreds of millions of years. The new rex - Latin for "king" - belongs in the groupAntiarchi, which are extinct fish. "Bothriolepis rex (B rex) extends the range of known body sizes for the group Antiarchi," said Jason Downs, research associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in the US.

New species of extinct marine reptiles of Jurassic age (Representational Image)

Scientists have discovered new species of extinct marine reptiles. The results have been achieved from the fossils collected over a hundred years ago. Reptiles were from the age of dinosaurs. The species identified as British Ichthyosaur were ocean dwelling reptiles.The species looked like dolphins or sharks. They were 15 metre long and were coarse predators. British Ichthyosaur is from the Jurassic period, around 200 million years ago, when UK was series of islands. The University of Manchester conducted six-year study to search for British examples of Ichthyosaurs. The researchers managed to identify the features in the skulls and fins of fossilised remains, which shoed new species stand out from the others.

World's largest dinosaur footprint in Gobi Desert (Representational Image)

Researchers have reported about discovering one of the largest footprints of dinosaur in the Gobi Desert. A joint Mongolian-Japanese expedition found a giant print measuring 106 centimetres long and 77 centimetres wide.One of several footprints discovered in the vast Mongolian desert, the huge fossil was discovered last month in a geologic layer formed between 70 million and 90 million years ago, researchers said.