1 June: Geologists identify the largest known eruption in the Yellowstone hotspot track, which occurred around 8.72 Ma. [1]- 1 June
- Astronomers report narrowing down the source of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), which may now plausibly include "compact-object mergers and magnetars arising from normal core collapse supernovae".[3][4]
- The existence of quark cores in neutron stars is confirmed by Finnish researchers.[5][6][7]
- Geologists report two newly identified supervolcano eruptions associated with the Yellowstone hotspot track, including the region's largest and most cataclysmic event – the Grey's Landing super-eruption – which had a volume of ≥2800 km3 and occurred around 8.72 Ma. According to the study the Yellowstone hotspot may be waning, with another eruption of this scale not likely up to around 900,000 AD.[8][1][9]
- Researchers studying corvids report that extended parenting and extended childhood is crucial for the evolution of cognition and is having profound consequences for learning and intelligence. These may create longer developmental periods in which life-history is combined with social and ecological conditions such as via continuous exposure to role models that are relatively tolerant of the children as well as continuous opportunities for learning. Earlier research on primates showed that across species relative brain size covaries with cognitive skills and that adaptations that compensate developmental and energetic costs of large brains are critical for their evolution.[10][11][12]
- Findings of studying the spin direction of more than 200,000 spiral galaxies presented at the 236th American Astronomical Society meeting may suggest that the universe could have a defined structure and that the early universe could have been spinning. According to the researcher spiral galaxies in different regions of spacetime have been found to relate through their spin-directions and even though the asymmetry of spin-directions is just over 2%, the probability to have such asymmetry by chance is less than 1 to 4 billion.[13][14][15][additional citation(s) needed]
- Researchers publish a study using data on verterbrates on the brink to extinction and on verterbrates that recently became extinct, in which they conclude that a human-caused potential sixth mass extinction, which was claimed to be emerging by researchers of the study in 2015, is likely accelerating and suggest a number of reasons for that including extinctions causing further extinctions. They reemphasize "extreme urgency of taking much-expanded worldwide actions".[2][16][17]
- 2 June – A study investigating the emergence of life on Earth and possibly other locations demonstrates a continuous chemical reaction network of simple organic and inorganic feedstocks that, in water and under high-energy radiation, generates compounds proposed to be precursors for early RNA, modelling how they may emerge spontaneously from a simple reagents mixture under conditions of early Earth through natural geochemistry.[18][19][20]
3 June: Researchers show that compared to rural populations urban red foxes (pictured) in London are mirroring patterns of domestication similar to domesticated dogs, as they adapt to their city environment. [21]- 3 June
- The discovery of the oldest and largest structure in the Maya region, a 3,000-year-old pyramid-topped platform Aguada Fénix, with LiDAR technology is reported. According to the researchers the discovery suggests the importance of communal work, as with early ceremonial complexes, in the initial development of Maya civilization.[22][23]
- Researchers report that mitochondrial genetic divergence could be used to predict the reproductive compatibility of mammalian hybrid offspring and that ancient anatomically modern humans (AMH), Neanderthals and Denisovans were genetically closer than polar bears and brown bears (1.6% divergence for Neanderthals and AMH and 2.4% for the bears) and, like the bears, were able to easily produce healthy hybrids.[24][25]
- Researchers show that urban red foxes from London and surrounding boroughs are divergent in skull traits, similar to domesticated dogs, as they adapt to their city environment with patterns of skull divergence between urban and rural habitats matching the description of morphological changes that can occur during domestication.[21][26]
- Scientists report that a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial found evidence that the drug hydroxychloroquine, controversially promoted by President of the United States Donald Trump as a potential treatment in mid-March,[27][28][29] does not effectively protect people from COVID-19 administered within 4 days after exposure.[30][31][32] Other researchers are continuing to explore whether hydroxychloroquine might prevent infections as pre-exposure prophylaxis.[33]
- 4 June
- Astronomers report that Kepler-160, a Sun-like star already known to host two planets, likely has a rocky third planet with orbit and light levels very similar to Earth.[34][35]
- Astronomers report that results from research of Hubble Space Telescope data and other supporting data, to be published in an upcoming paper, show that galaxies must have formed much earlier than previously thought – earlier than can be probed with the Hubble Space Telescope.[36][37][additional citation(s) needed]
- Scientists report that fruit fly mothers ensure their offspring's success through transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, suggesting that in humans the epigenetic modification H4K16ac might also be inherited as a "blueprint", encoding, to date unknown, information for successful embryonic development.[38][39]
- Scientists report bacterial mass lysis for colony-defense occurs when the bacteria will die anyway from toxin exposure from competing bacteria, explaining the evolutionary origin of this behaviour.[40][41]
- 5 June – Two separate research teams publish two preprints on 5 June and 10 June according to which Neuropilin-1 (NRP1) is a second protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter human cells by binding to it with its spike protein next to the protein ACE2.[42][31][43][44][45]
- 7 June – News reports that NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space in 1984, and now 68 years old, is the first woman to reach the deepest part of the ocean, nearly seven miles below the surface.[46]
- 8 June
- Computer experts warn Windows 10 users to update their computers with the latest security patches from Microsoft in order to avoid being infected with the wormlike SMBGhost security vulnerability, for which a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit had been released on 2 June, which, in unpatched computers, may have serious consequences.[47][48][49]
- Researchers report results consistent with the hypothesis that pesticides contribute to monarch butterfly declines in the western United States.[50][51]
- 9 June – Scientists confirm that the airborne radioactivity increase in Europe in autumn 2017 had a civilian background – Russian water-water energetic reactor (VVER) fuel at the end of its lifetime – and not a military one that is related to the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.[52][53]
10 June: Scientists report evidence that females' follicular fluid's consistent and differential attraction of sperm from specific males constitutes a distinct post-mating choice. [54]- 10 June
- Scientists report evidence that females' follicular fluid's consistent and differential attraction of sperm, an ability of human egg cells first reported in 1991, from specific males constitutes a post-mating choice and report that this mechanism did not reinforce pre-mating human mate choice decisions.[54][55]
- Researchers report that the most successful – in terms of "likelihood of prizewinning, National Academy of Science (NAS) induction, or superstardom" – protégés studied under mentors who published research for which they were conferred a prize after the protégés' mentorship. Studying original topics rather than these mentors' research-topics was also positively associated with success.[56][57]
11 June: Scientists report the generation of Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in the Cold Atom Laboratory (pictured) aboard the ISS under microgravity which could enable improved research of BECs and quantum mechanics. [58]- 11 June
- Two teams of neuroscientists report the identification of populations of neurons in mice that control their hibernation-like behaviors, torpor – a fasting-induced state with a substantially decreased metabolic rate and body temperature. They also show that stimulation of specific populations of neurons can induce the key features of torpor even in mice that are not calorically restricted as well as in rats, which do not naturally go into a state of torpor.[59][60][61][62]
- Scientists report the generation of rubidium Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in the Cold Atom Laboratory aboard the International Space Station under microgravity which could enable improved research of BECs and quantum mechanics, whose physics are scaled to macroscopic scales in BECs, support long-term investigations of few-body physics, support the development of techniques for atom-wave interferometry and atom lasers and has verified the successful operation of the laboratory.[58][63][64]
- Scientists report findings that suggest that some species of crocodile-ancestors – here the Crocodylomorph Batrachopus grandis ichnosp. nov. – walked on their two hind legs and had a length of over three meters during the Lower Cretaceous.[65][66][67]
- 12 June
- Scientists announce preliminary results that demonstrate successful treatment during a small trial of the first to use of CRISPR gene editing (CRISPR-Cas9) to treat inherited genetic disorders – beta thalassaemia and sickle cell disease.[68][69][70][71]
- Archaeologists report the earliest evidence for bow and arrow use and possibly the manufacturing of clothes or nets outside of Africa, in the tropics of Sri Lanka ~48 kya.[72][73]
- Scientists report that extensive coal burning and combustion of other organic matter in Siberia likely was a cause of Earth's most severe extinction event, the Permian-Triassic extinction event ~252 Mya.[74][75]
- Geophysicists provide the first comprehensive, wide-area, high-resolution view of the Earth's core-mantle boundary and show that heterogenous, unusually dense structures at the boundary are more widespread than previously known.[76][77]
- 13 June – Scientists report that early supercomputer climate modelling results that are being compiled for the sixth assessment by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by more than 20 institutions due to be released in 2021 suggest a higher climate sensitivity than previously believed with 25% of the models showing a sharp upward shift from 3 °C to 5 °C in climate sensitivity supporting or revising worst-case projections of over 5 °C of global warming. The projections of more future warming may be due to a role of clouds. According to a study published on 24 June cloud feedbacks and cloud-aerosol interactions are the most likely contributors to the high values and increased range of equilibrium climate sensitivity in the CMIP6 model.[78][79][80]
15 June: Scientists estimate that about a fifth of the world population, belong to a vulnerable group which has at least one underlying condition that raises the risk of severe disease when contracting
COVID-19. The image shows the severity of diagnosed COVID-19 cases in China.[81]- 15 June
- Astronomers report the possible existence of over 30 "active communicating intelligent civilizations", or Communicating Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent (CETI) civilizations (none within our current ability to detect due to various reasons including distance or size) in our own Milky Way galaxy, based on the latest astrophysical information – including a longevity of the only known technological civilization that is emitting signals to space of about 100 years to date.[82][83][84]
- A study of broad-tailed hummingbirds shows that hummingbirds can discriminate non-spectral colors due to birds' fourth color-sensitive visual cone (humans have three) and demonstrate a system for investigating animal color vision.[85][86][87]
- A scientific analysis estimates that as of 2020 about 1.7 bn people (UI 1·0–2·4) people, or 22% (UI 15–28%) of the world population, belong to a vulnerable group which has at least one underlying condition that raises the risk of severe disease when contracting COVID-19 and that about 4% [3–9] of the global population would require hospital admission if infected. They are describing their results as uncertain and state that the risk varies considerably by age and that they did not consider some risk factors such as obesity.[31][88][89]
- Scientists report the development of the smallest synthetic molecular motor, consisting of 12 atoms and a rotor of 4 atoms, shown to be capable of being powered by an electric current using an electron scanning microscope and moving even with very low amounts of energy due to quantum tunneling.[90][91][92]
17 June: Possible first detection of Solar axion by particle physicists [93](image of a xenon atom, used in the experiments). - 16 June
- The University of Oxford reports that a major trial of dexamethasone – a cheap, widely available corticosteroid medication – shows it can significantly reduce mortality in COVID-19 patients.[94][95]
- Astronomers map the atmosphere of the red supergiant star Antares in unprecedented detail, using both the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). The map is the most detailed yet obtained of any star, other than the Sun.[96][97][98]
- Scientists report simulation results that indicate that flushing a toilet can create a large, widespread cloud of aerosol droplets containing viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 that lasts long enough for the droplets to be breathed in by others and offer suggestions concerning safer toilet use and recommendations for a better toilet design.[99][100]
- 17 June
- Physicists at the XENON dark matter research facility report an excess of 53 events, which may hint at the existence of hypothetical Solar axions. Other possibilities for the anomalous detection include a surprisingly large magnetic moment for neutrinos, and tritium contamination in the detector.[93][101][102]
- Scientists report in a preprint that genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screens in monkey cells have identified genes that might help SARS-CoV-2 infect its hosts.[31][103][104]
- Results of a study indicate greater regional anthropogenic carbon storage in and ocean acidification of the Arctic Ocean than previously projected.[105][106]
- Quantum scientists report the development of a system that entangles two photon quantum communication nodes through a microwave cable that can send information in between without the photons ever being sent through, or occupying, the cable. On 12 June it was reported that they also, for the first time, entangled two phonons as well as erase information from their measurement after the measurement has been completed using delayed-choice quantum erasure.[107][108][109][110]
- 18 June – NASA scientists report that exoplanets with oceans may be common in the Milky Way galaxy, based on mathematical modeling studies.[111][112][113]
19 June: Scientists warn that worldwide growth in affluence, measured by GDP (pictured), is associated with the problematically high increase of resource use and pollutant emissions. [114]19 June: News reports the first NASA-funded search for technosignatures from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations other than radio waves only. [115]- 19 June
- Scientists produce the first open-source all-atom model and simulation of a full-length spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 which the virus uses to enter cells. This may be useful for modeling and simulation research for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.[116][117]
- Researchers report to have calculated an upper limit for a fundamental period of a possibly quantized time – as can be found in theories of quantum gravity and quantum cosmology – that is about 10 orders of magnitude above the Planck time – 10−33 seconds – and propose a theoretical apparatus and experiment that, if ever realized, could be capable of being influenced by effects on relevant timescales and possibly confirm their theory that is based on a physical model of time as an oscillating variable.[118][119][120]
- Scientists, as part of a World Scientists' Warning to Humanity-associated series, warn that worldwide growth in affluence has increased resource use and pollutant emissions with affluent citizens of the world – in terms of e.g. resource-intensive consumption – being responsible for most negative environmental impacts and central to a transition to safer, sustainable conditions. They summarise evidence, present solution approaches and state that far-reaching lifestyle changes need to complement technological advancements and that existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and that the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits societal change.[114][121][122]
- News reports the first SETI-specific grant that NASA has awarded in three decades. The grant funds the first NASA-funded search for technosignatures from advanced extraterrestrial civilizations other than radio waves, including the creation and population of an online technosignature library.[123][124][115]
- Scientists report that a novel cancer immunotherapy that included a personalized vaccine was shown to be successful in dogs. The vaccine was made from each dog's bone cancer cells.[125] On 3 July it was reported that the results have helped obtain FDA approval for testing the method with human brain cancer patients.[126][127]
22 June: Scientists demonstrate that it is possible for fish to migrate via ingestion of fish eggs (pictured) by birds. [128]- 22 June
- Astronomers report evidence that the dwarf planet Pluto may have had a subsurface ocean, and consequently may have been habitable, when it was first formed.[129][130]
- Scientists demonstrate that it is possible for fish to migrate via ingestion of fish eggs by birds.[128][131][132]
- Scientists demonstrate that it may be possible – for advanced extraterrestrial civilizations – to harvest rotational energy from black holes 51 years after it has been proposed to be possible and 49 years after an experiment to test the theory has been proposed.[133][134][135]
- Scientists report that the ancient fish species Tanyrhinichthys mcallisteri, which they assess to be highly similar to sturgeons in its features, evolved its sturgeon-like characteristics in a nearly simultaneous distinct evolutionary path from sturgeons.[136][137][importance?]
- 23 June
- Astronomers report details of the merging, in the "mass gap" of cosmic collisions, of a first-ever "mystery object": either a possibly too-heavy neutron star or a too-light black hole, with a black hole, that was detected as a gravitational wave, GW190814. According to one of the researchers, "We don’t know if this object is the heaviest known neutron star or the lightest known black hole, but either way it breaks a record."[138][139][140]
- The World Meteorological Organization announces a possible new temperature-record of 38 °C north of the Arctic Circle, which it seeks to verify and assess. It was reported on 20 June in Verkhoyansk, Russia amid a prolonged Siberian heatwave and an increase in wildfire activity.[141][142][143]
- 24 June
- The largest ever tanzanite gemstones are discovered, weighing 9.27 kg and 5.103 kg, respectively.[144]
- In a preprint astronomers report the discovery of the second oldest quasar, Pōniuāʻena (J1007+2115) that is twice as massive as the oldest one, ULAS J1342+0928, and existed 700 million years after the Big Bang, challenging models of the earliest supermassive black hole growth.[145][146]
- The World Meteorological Organization announces new records for the longest lightning bolt (700 km) and the "megaflash" with the longest duration (16.73 s).[147][148][149]
- 25 June
- Astronomers report detecting a gravitational wave, named GW190521g, that is associated with, for the first time ever, a flash of light from the merger, within the vicinity of a third very large black hole, of two smaller black holes. No light is typically emitted from the merger of black holes.[150][151][152]
- Scientists report, with a genetic study, the identification of the origin of domesticated chicken, including insights into their evolutionary history, suggesting that they initially derived from Gallus gallus spadiceus.[153][154]
- 26 June – Astronomers report the detection of four odd radio circles (ORCs). unexplained astronomical objects that, at radio wavelengths, are highly circular and brighter along their edges. The observed ORCs are bright at radio wavelengths, but are not visible at visible, infrared or X-ray wavelengths. Two of the ORCs contain galaxies, observable at visible wavelengths, in their centers, suggesting that the galaxies might have formed these objects.[155][156][157]
- 28 June – In two papers, the first of which published in February, scientists report the development of the possibly most lightweight biopolymer aerogel that is flexible and durable and has a relatively high electromagnetic shielding-performance.[158][159][160][161]
30 June: J2157 is identified as the fastest-growing black hole in the Universe. [162]- 30 June
- Two surveys of 85.9% and 71.5% of the population of the small town of Vo', the location the first coronavirus death in Italy, find that according to the surveys 42.5% (95% CI 31.5-54.6%) of the confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections of the surveys were asymptomatic. The published unedited manuscript also shows that individuals older than 50 showed a higher infection prevalence, that the average time to viral clearance was 9.3 days (8–13 days) and that viral load tended to peak around the day of symptom onset.[163][164][165] In mid-March the scientists of the study, whose survey began on 6 March, reported that the research led to the discovery of the decisive role in the spread of the novel coronavirus by asymptomatic people.[166]
- Scientists report, after they publicized the first version of a preprint in April 2019, a possible explanation for the origin of high-energy cosmic neutrinos observed[which?] by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, suggesting that emissions of coronae of supermassive black holes, such as possibly the active galactic nucleus of Messier 77, may be their source.[167][168]
- Astronomers report that J2157, discovered in 2018, is now known to have 34 billion solar masses and is consuming the equivalent of nearly 1 solar mass every day, making it the fastest-growing black hole in the Universe.[169][162]
- Scientist at CERN report that the LHCb experiment has observed a four-charm quark particle never seen before, which is likely to be the first of a previously undiscovered class of particles.[170][171][172]
|