Science News Roundup: Variant that combines Delta and Omicron identified; dogs sniff out virus with high accuracy; Meteorite gouged huge Greenland crater 58 million years ago, study finds and more

The scientists said that the effects were even seen in people who had not been hospitalised with COVID, and whether the impact could be partially reversed or if they would persist in the long term needed further investigation. Original Buzz Aldrin moon walk photo sells for $7,700 at auction A series of original NASA photographs from the Apollo missions sold for a total of 1.16 million Danish crowns ($171,831) in an auction in Copenhagen on Wednesday.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Variant that combines Delta and Omicron identified; dogs sniff out virus with high accuracy

The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review. "Deltacron" with genes of Delta and Omicron found

Meteorite gouged huge Greenland crater 58 million years ago, study finds

An immense crater in northwestern Greenland, buried under a thick sheet of ice and first spotted in 2015, is much older than previously suspected - formed by a meteorite impact 58 million years ago, rather than 13,000 years ago as had been proposed. Scientists said on Wednesday they used two different dating methods on sand and rock left over from the impact to determine when the crater - about 19 miles (31 km) wide - was formed. They found that the meteorite - roughly one to 1.25 miles (1.5-2 km) in diameter - struck Greenland about 8 million years after a larger asteroid impact at Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula wiped out the dinosaurs.

COVID-19 can cause brain shrinkage, memory loss - study

COVID-19 can cause the brain to shrink, reduce grey matter in the regions that control emotion and memory, and damage areas that control the sense of smell, an Oxford University study have found. The scientists said that the effects were even seen in people who had not been hospitalized with COVID and whether the impact could be partially reversed or if they would persist in the long term needed further investigation.

Original Buzz Aldrin moon walk photo sells for $7,700 at auction

A series of original NASA photographs from the Apollo missions sold for a total of 1.16 million Danish crowns ($171,831) in an auction in Copenhagen on Wednesday. The 74 privately-owned photographs from the Apollo 8-17 missions included the famous one of Buzz Aldrin's moonwalk during the first manned lunar landing in July 1969, which sold for 52,000 crowns.

Primordial octopus was up in arms - 10 instead of eight

For the roughly 300 known octopus species dwelling in the world's oceans, having eight arms is a defining characteristic. But that is not the way it started. Scientists said on Tuesday a fossil unearthed in central Montana of a species named Syllipsimopodi bideni represents the oldest-known relative of today's octopuses and boasts 10 arms, with two twice as long as the other eight. The fossil, so well preserved that it reveals two parallel rows of suckers up and down each arm, dates to about 328 million years ago.

Denmark says sorry for taking Greenland children in 1950s social experiment

Denmark's prime minister on Wednesday delivered a face-to-face apology to six living victims of a 1950s social experiment in which 22 Greenlandic children were taken from their families and sent to Denmark to be integrated into Danish society. The Inuit children were between four and nine years old when they were shipped to Denmark, then the colonial power, in 1951 to try to re-educate them as "little Danes".

(With inputs from agencies.)