Science News Roundup: A 'cataclysmic' celestial couple gone wrong - a star eats its mate; Puny critter shows humble beginnings of magnificent flying reptiles and more

Following is a summary of current science news briefs. A 'cataclysmic' celestial couple gone wrong - a star eats its mate Unlike the lonely sun, about half the stars in our Milky Way galaxy are in a long-term committed relationship with another star, orbiting each another in a celestial marriage called a binary system.

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

A 'cataclysmic' celestial couple gone wrong - a star eats its mate

Unlike the lonely sun, about half the stars in our Milky Way galaxy are in a long-term committed relationship with another star, orbiting each another in a celestial marriage called a binary system. Researchers this week described one of these marriages gone wrong - a twosome that borders on the extreme, with the pair whirling around each other every 51 minutes in the fastest such orbital period known for a rare class of binary stars. As part of the drama, one star is eating its companion.

Puny critter shows humble beginnings of magnificent flying reptiles

Pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that thrived during the age of dinosaurs, achieved great size - some with wingspans like a fighter jet - and displayed striking anatomy including exotic head crests and a hugely elongated finger to support their wings. While the ancestry and early evolution of these creatures have long puzzled scientists, a fresh examination of remains found in Scotland of a small reptile that lived about 230 million years ago during the Triassic Period is helping shed light on the humble origins of pterosaurs, researchers said on Wednesday.

Rugby-Research shows huge spike in MND risk among former international players

A new study looking at the impact of concussion on a group of former Scottish international rugby players has found that they were 15 times more likely to develop motor neurone disease (MND) than the general population. The figure is likely to send shock waves through the sport, which is already embroiled in a legal fight over the link between concussion and early onset dementia and which is scrambling to find ways of reducing incidences of concussion in matches and training at all levels.

Latest four-member SpaceX crew, including cosmonaut, welcomed aboard space station

A four-member SpaceX Crew Dragon team, including a Russian cosmonaut and the first Native American woman sent to orbit, safely docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday and moved aboard to begin a five-month science mission. Rendezvous of the latest NASA expedition to the orbiting laboratory came just after 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) following a 29-hour flight to the ISS as the two vehicles circled the globe some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth off the west coast of Africa, according to a NASA webcast of the docking.

Nobel prize goes to pioneers of Lego-like "click chemistry"

Scientists Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for discovering reactions that let molecules snap together to create new compounds and that offer insight into cell biology. The field of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry has been harnessed to improve the targeting of cancer pharmaceuticals now being tested in clinical trials, along with a host of health, agricultural and industrial applications.

(With inputs from agencies.)