Three planets -- each orbiting its own giant, dying star -- have been discovered by an international research team led by a Penn State University astronomer.

The development of periodic structures in embryos giving rise to the formation of, e.g., spine segments, is controlled not by genes but by simple physical and chemical phenomena.

Footprints described by scientists in a new report suggest that the earliest species of dinosaurs are not only older than previously believed, but much smaller as well.

A new planet closely orbiting a red giant star was found by a team of astronomers from Penn State University and Nicolaus Copernicus University. The research sheds light on ways in which aging stars can influence nearby planets, Penn State said in a news release. The discovered planet has a mass about six times that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system that includes Earth, said Alexander Wolszczan from Penn State and Andrzej Niedzielski of Nicolaus Copernicus University.

A team of astronomers from Penn State and Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland has discovered a new planet that is closely orbiting a red-giant star, HD 102272, which is much older than our own Sun.