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Indiana U. at APHA: Studies about why men and women use lubricants during sex — 9 Nov 16:56
Failing the sniff test: Researchers find new way to spot fraud — 9 Nov 16:51
Scientists uncover new key to the puzzle of hormone therapy and breast cancer — 9 Nov 16:46
Self-cleaning silicone gel insect wings — 9 Nov 16:41
Newly discovered fat molecule: An undersea killer with an upside — 9 Nov 16:36
Breast density associated with increased risk of cancer recurrence — 9 Nov 16:31
Young tennis players who play only 1 sport are more prone to injuries — 9 Nov 16:26
Rutgers computer scientists work to strengthen online security — 9 Nov 16:21
Computerised support keeps prominence of name brand drugs at bay — 9 Nov 16:16
Drought resistance explained — 9 Nov 16:11
Sniffing out memories — 9 Nov 16:06
Babies with an accent — 8 Nov 12:53
Ants are friendly to some trees, but not others — 8 Nov 12:48
NHLBI stops enrolment in study on resuscitation methods for cardiac arrest — 8 Nov 12:43
Researchers find new way to attack inflammation in Graves' eye disease — 8 Nov 12:38
Lasers put a shine on metals — 8 Nov 12:33
Carnegie Mellon researchers link health-care debate to risk of dying in US and Europe — 8 Nov 12:28
Higher carotid arterial stenting rates associated with poorer clinical outcomes — 8 Nov 12:23
Pathogen protection and virulence: Dark side of fungal membrane protein revealed — 8 Nov 12:18
'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies — 8 Nov 12:13
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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Tyrannosaur design evolved at 'punk size'
Last updated: Monday, 9 November 2009 16:56 GMT

Opening up a colourful cosmic jewel box

— 29 October | Astronomy

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) ESOStar 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 Cross in the constellation of Crux. The Kappa Crucis Cluster, also known as NGC 4755 or simply the 'Jewel Box' is just bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye. It was given its nickname by the English astronomer John Herschel in the 1830s because the striking colour contrasts of its pale blue and orange stars seen through a telescope reminded Herschel of a piece of exotic jewellery... 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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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

Astronomers obtained this portrait of Barnard's Galaxy using the Wide Field Imager attached to the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. Also known as NGC 6822, this dwarf irregular galaxy is one of the Milky Way's galactic neighbours. The dwarf galaxy has no shortage of stellar splendour and pyrotechnics. Reddish nebulae in this image reveal regions of active star formation, wherein young, hot stars heat up nearby gas clouds. Also prominent in the upper left of this new image is a striking bubble-shaped nebula. At the nebula's centre, a clutch of massive, scorching stars send waves of matter smashing into surrounding interstellar material, generating a glowing structure that appears ring-like from our perspective. Other similar ripples of heated matter thrown out by feisty young stars are dotted across Barnard's Galaxy, (c) ESOThe Milky Way's tiny but tough galactic neighbour

— 14 Oct | Astronomy

In the new ESO image, Barnard's Galaxy glows beneath a sea of foreground stars in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius (the Archer). At the relatively close distance of... — full story

Not surprisingly, interacting galaxies have a dramatic effect on each other. Studies have revealed that as galaxies approach one another massive amounts of gas are pulled from each galaxy towards the centre of the other, until ultimately, the two merge into one massive galaxy. NGC 2623 is in the late stages of the merging process, with the centres of the original galaxy pair now merged into one nucleus, but stretching out from the centre are two tidal tails of young stars, a strong indicator that a merger has taken place. During such a collision, the dramatic exchange of mass and gases initiates star formation, seen here in both the tails. The prominent lower tail is richly populated with bright star clusters - 100 of them have been found in these observations. These star clusters may have formed as part of a loop of stretched material associated with the northern tail, or they may have formed from debris falling back onto the nucleus. In addition to this active star-forming region, both galactic arms harbour very young stars in the early stages of their evolutionary journey, (c) NASA, ESA and A. Evans (Stony Brook University, New York)Sky merger yields sparkling dividends

— 13 Oct | Astronomy

A recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures what appears to be one very bright and bizarre galaxy, but is actually the result of a pair of spiral galaxies that resemble... — 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
How size matters for catalysts — 6 Nov 12:40
Chemists describe solar energy progress and challenges, including the 'artificial leaf' — 6 Nov 10:08
Physics
Researchers pin down quantum particles — 21 Oct 09:11
UA scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos — 9 Oct 12:50
Biology
Drought resistance explained — 9 Nov 16:11
Sniffing out memories — 9 Nov 16:06
Geology and palaeontology
The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula — 6 Nov 11:24
Male sabertoothed cats were pussycats compared to macho lions — 6 Nov 10:35
Astronomy
'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies — 8 Nov 12:13
New type of supernova explosion reported; predicted by theoretical physicists at UCSB — 6 Nov 11:06
Environment
Nitrogen loss threatens desert plant life, study shows — 8 Nov 12:08
Past climate of the northern Antarctic Peninsular informs global warming debate — 8 Nov 11:53
Technology
Failing the sniff test: Researchers find new way to spot fraud — 9 Nov 16:51
Self-cleaning silicone gel insect wings — 9 Nov 16:41
Health
Indiana U. at APHA: Studies about why men and women use lubricants during sex — 9 Nov 16:56
Scientists uncover new key to the puzzle of hormone therapy and breast cancer — 9 Nov 16:46

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
“Minds are like parachutes, they only work when open.”
—

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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

Pluto
Photo: (c) NASA, ESA, H. Weaver (JHU/APL), A. Stern (SwRI), and the HST Pluto Companion Search Team
Pluto — Pluto is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-largest body observed directly orbiting the Sun. From the time of its discovery in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh...

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