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Good news on multiple sclerosis and pregnancy — 19 Nov 18:18
Hidden threat: Elevated pollution levels near regional airports — 19 Nov 18:18
Saliva proteins change as women age — 19 Nov 18:13
Secondhand smoke exposure worse for toddlers, obese children — 19 Nov 18:08
Asthma a significant risk factor for complications in children with H1N1 — 19 Nov 18:03
Developing 'green' tires that boost mileage and cut carbon dioxide emissions — 19 Nov 17:58
New on-off 'switch' triggers and reverses paralysis in animals with a beam of light — 19 Nov 17:53
Toward explaining why hepatitis B hits men harder than women — 19 Nov 17:48
Drug for erectile dysfunction improves heart function in young heart-disease patients — 19 Nov 17:43
Berkeley Lab lends expertise to India to promote energy efficiency — 19 Nov 17:38
Increased obesity hindering success at reducing heart disease risk — 18 Nov 13:10
Researchers discover heart disease in 3,500-year-old mummies — 18 Nov 13:05
Students with a lower socioeconomic background benefit from daily school physical activity — 18 Nov 13:00
Immediate, aggressive spending on HIV could end epidemic — 18 Nov 12:55
Study examines challenges of diagnosing neurofibromatosis type 1 - like syndrome — 18 Nov 12:50
Solving the 50-year-old puzzle of thalidomide — 18 Nov 12:45
Current cigarette smokers at increased risk of seizures — 18 Nov 12:40
Last-resort lower-body amputation effective in extreme cases of bone infection — 18 Nov 12:35
Ticking stellar time bomb identified — 18 Nov 12:30
Are teenagers wired differently than adults? — 18 Nov 12:25
Travel — News | Photos
Afghanistan declares its first national park
Caistor skeleton mystifies archaeologists — 16 Sep 14:24
A rare discovery: An engraved gemstone carrying a portrait of Alexander the Great — 15 Sep 14:14
Figurines of Aphrodite from the era of the Roman Empire discovered in Hippos — 14 Sep 17:24
Afghanistan declares its first national park — 22 Apr 11:10
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Art & style — Art | Photography | Style
How do we perceive art?
The National Museum of Natural History, Sofia will participate in the 'Researchers' Night' — 15 Sep 15:26
How do we perceive art? — 15 Sep 14:06
'Dance 4 Health' program teaches local teens ballroom dancing — 16 Jun 00:01
Singin' the mathematical equation blues — 26 May 13:15
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Editorials

— The Nobel Prize in chemistry is going to Ramakrishnan, Steitz, Yonath — [7 Oct] The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, has decided to award the Nobel...

— The Nobel Prize in physics is going to Kao, Boyle and Smith — [6 Oct] The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, has decided to award the Nobel...

— The Nobel in medicine is going to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak — [5 Oct] The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, has decided to award the...

— Tyrannosaur design evolved at 'punk size' — [17 Sep] A new dinosaur shows that tyrannosaur design evolved at 'punk size.' The creature,...

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A new type of stem cells found in prostate may be involved in cancer
Last updated: Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:18 GMT

Ghostly 'spokes' puff out from Saturn's ring's

— 15 November | Astronomy

Massive, bright clouds of tiny ice particles hover above the darkened rings of Saturn in an image captured by the Cassini spacecraft on 22 September 2009 around the time of Saturn's equinox, (c) NASA, JPL, Space Science InstituteMassive, bright clouds of tiny ice particles hover above the darkened rings of Saturn in an image captured by the Cassini spacecraft on 22 September 2009 around the time of Saturn's equinox. During this period, sunlight hits the rings edge-on and shines directly over the equator. The levitating icy particle clouds, which are known as 'spokes' and are as wide as 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles), appear particularly dramatic because of the unique lighting geometry of the equinox period... full story


Minuscule
— Voices of long-dead stars haunt the galaxy — Mysterious radio blips that come from apparently empty regions of space may be the voices of long-dead stars....
— Frog embryos 'smell' predators — Frogs learn to recognise the smell of their enemies while they are still developing as embryos, say scientists....
— Polar bear plus grizzly equals? — What do you get if you cross a polar bear with a grizzly brown bear? Scientists can now answer the question, following the...
— Ghostly 'dance of a sea dragon' — One of the most elegant courtship rituals in the animal kingdom has been captured on film by a BBC crew....
Minuscule on 30 October 2009 —
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Artist's impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO's very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed, (c) ESO/L. CalcadaExoplanets clue to sun's curious chemistry

— 12 Nov | Astronomy

'For almost 10 years we have tried to find out what distinguishes stars with planetary systems from their barren cousins,' says Garik Israelian, lead author of a paper appearing this... — full story

The FORS1 instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO's Paranal Observatory was used to take this exquisitely sharp close up view of the colourful Jewel Box cluster, NGC 4755. The telescope's huge mirror allowed very short exposure times: just 2.6 seconds through a blue filter (B), 1.3 seconds through a yellow/green filter (V) and 1.3 seconds through a red filter (R). The field of view spans about seven arcminutes, (c) ESOOpening up a colourful cosmic jewel box

— 29 Oct | Astronomy

Star clusters are among the most visually alluring and astrophysically fascinating objects in the sky. One of the most spectacular nestles deep in the southern skies near the Southern... — full story

On 19 October 2009, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO's 3.6-metre telescope, reported on the incredible discovery of some 32 new exoplanets, cementing HARPS's position as the world's foremost exoplanet hunter. One of these is surrounding the star Gliese 667 C, which belongs to a triple system. The 6 Earth-mass exoplanet circulates around its low-mass host star at a distance equal to only 1/20th of the Earth-Sun distance. The host star is a companion to two other low-mass stars, which are seen here in the distance, (c) ESO32 new exoplanets found

— 20 Oct | Astronomy

'HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds,' says Stephane Udry, who made the announcement. 'We have now completed our initial... — full story

This image shows an artist's conception of the bubble around our solar system moving through the interstellar medium, the matter that fills the local region of our galaxy. New observations from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn suggest the shape resembles something like a slippery ball moving through smoke, (c) NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPLCassini data help redraw shape of solar system

— 16 Oct | Astronomy

Images from the Ion and Neutral Camera on NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest that the heliosphere, the region of the sun's influence, may not have the comet-like shape predicted by existing... — full story


Popular

The new dinosaur, Raptorex, from NE China had evolved all the hallmark anatomical features of Tyrannosaurus rex at least 125 million years ago, (c) Todd MarshallTyrannosaur design evolved at 'punk size'

— 17 Sep | Geology and palaeontology

A new dinosaur shows that tyrannosaur design evolved at 'punk size.' The creature, Raptorex, from NE China had evolved all the hallmark anatomical features of Tyrannosaurus rex at least... — full story

This natural colour view of Saturn and Titan was created by combining images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on 29 January 2008, at a distance of approximately 1.4 million miles, or 2.2 million kilometres, from Titan and 630,000 miles, or 1,013,887 kilometres, from Saturn, (c) NASA, JPL, Space Science InstituteUnravelling the chemistry of Titan's hazy atmosphere

— 16 Sep | Astronomy

An international team of scientists has announced the confirmation of a key chemical reaction that forms the molecule triacetylene in the ultra-cold atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.... — full story

Seen edge-on, observations of NGC 4945 suggest that this hive of stars is a spiral galaxy much like our own Milky Way, with swirling, luminous arms and a bar-shaped centre. Sites of active star formation, known as H II regions, are seen prominently in the image, appearing bright pink. These resemblances aside, NGC 4945 has a brighter centre that likely harbours a supermassive black hole, which is devouring reams of matter and blasting energy out into space. NGC 4945 is about 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus (the Centaur) and is beautifully revealed in this image taken with data in five bands (B, V, R, H-alpha and S II) with the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at La Silla. The field of view is 30 x 30 arcminutes. North is up, East is to the left, (c) ESONGC 4945: The Milky Way's not-so-distant cousin

— 2 Sep | Astronomy

ESO has released a striking new image of a nearby galaxy that many astronomers think closely resembles our own Milky Way. Though the galaxy is seen edge-on, observations of NGC 4945... — full story

Gemini North infrared image of Saturn and Titan (at about 6 o'clock position). Image obtained on 7 May 2009 (5:31 UTC), using the Altair adaptive optics system with the Near-infrared imager (NIRI), (c) Gemini Observatory, AURA, Henry Roe, Lowell Observatory, Emily Schaller, Insitute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'iClouds discovered over Titan's tropics

— 12 Aug | Astronomy

In a case of persistent interplanetary detective work using powerful ground-based telescopes, a team of astronomers located and tracked the first bright but transient clouds over tropical... — full story


Topics
Chemistry
Developing 'green' tires that boost mileage and cut carbon dioxide emissions — 19 Nov 17:58
New on-off 'switch' triggers and reverses paralysis in animals with a beam of light — 19 Nov 17:53
Physics
Researchers pin down quantum particles — 21 Oct 09:11
UA scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos — 9 Oct 12:50
Biology
Study finds bees can learn differences in food's temperature — 18 Nov 11:45
Are female mountain goats sexually conflicted over size of mate? — 18 Nov 11:35
Geology and palaeontology
Study pits man verse machine in piecing together 425-million-year-old jigsaw — 17 Nov 15:39
Warm-blooded dinosaurs worked up a sweat — 11 Nov 13:28
Astronomy
Ticking stellar time bomb identified — 18 Nov 12:30
Dawn enters asteroid belt - for good — 18 Nov 09:55
Environment
Hidden threat: Elevated pollution levels near regional airports — 19 Nov 18:18
Alternative animal feed part of global fisheries crisis fix: UBC study — 18 Nov 11:40
Technology
Berkeley Lab lends expertise to India to promote energy efficiency — 19 Nov 17:38
Small optical force can budge nanoscale objects — 18 Nov 12:20
Health
Good news on multiple sclerosis and pregnancy — 19 Nov 18:18
Saliva proteins change as women age — 19 Nov 18:13

Entertainment — News | Films | Humour | Quotations

Physicists discuss the science of 'Angels and Demons'Physicists discuss the science of 'Angels and Demons'

— 9 Jun 08:42

Soeren Prell admits to being amused by some of the high energy physics portrayed in 'Angels and Demons,' the summer thriller starring science, religion and Tom Hanks. Take, for example,... — full story


Films
The Abyss
The Core
“I haven’t lost my mind, I know exactly where I left it.”
—

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Compendium — Biology | Astronomy and space

Astronomy and space

47 Tucanae

— The core of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, as imaged by the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC) onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Space Telescope's high spatial resolution and ultraviolet sensitivity make it a powerful tool for probing... — full article

Biology

Seitz, Adalbert (1860-1938)

— Adalbert Seitz (24 February 1860, Mainz - 5 March 1938, Darmstadt) was a German lepidopterist. He was the editor of Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde (The Macrolepidoptera of the World). This is a sixteen volume work with four supplements. The first four... — full article

Ring Nebula
Photo: (c) The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)
Ring Nebula [M 57] — The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest view yet of the most famous of all planetary nebulae: the Ring Nebula (M 57). In this October 1998 image, the telescope has...

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