The Amazing World Of The Praying Mantis

Wildlife enthusiast Jimmy Hoffman, 50, scours the vegetation around his home in the Costa Brava, Spain, looking for praying mantises. After finding his subjects, Mr Hoffman can spend up to two hours waiting to get the perfect shot. He said: “My favorite picture is of a mantis about to catch a butterfly. Unfortunately for the [...]

Cosmic ‘Ghost’: Evidence Of A Supermassive Black Hole

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory located a cosmic “ghost” that scientists think is evidence of a huge eruption produced by a supermassive black hole equal in power to a billion supernovas. The source, HDF 130, is over 10 billion light years away and existed at a time 3 billion years after the Big Bang, when galaxies [...]

Scientists Discover Recipe For Water In Space

European scientists say they’ve figured out the recipe for water in space: Just add starlight. They made the discovery while examining a dying star that is 500 light-years away from Earth, using an infrared observatory launched by the European Space Agency last year. “This is a good example of how better instruments can change our [...]

Feud Over Family Ties In Evolution

Prominent scientists dispute kinship’s role in self-sacrifice among highly social creatures. A furor has broken out among biologists over ant specialist E.O. Wilson’s latest attack on a concept used to explain the origins of self-sacrifice in the dog-eat-dog world of evolution. The debate centers around an idea called kin selection, which biologists use to understand [...]

Close-Up Macro Photos Of Tiny Jumping Spiders Reveal Ferocious Monsters

Staring menacingly at the camera these exotic looking creatures look like monsters straight out of a horror film. But, despite their appearance, these creatures are actually jumping spiders, which measure a tiny six millimetres. The harmless arachnids, which are capable of jumping up to six times their own height, can be found in grassy meadows [...]

Prehistoric ‘Terror Bird’ Pecked Creatures To Death

Scientists have discovered a prehistoric bird that used its hooked beak to peck its prey to death. The ninety-pound flightless birds, which lived in South America, wielded their giant, sharp beaks in quick jabs, repeatedly backing away and jabbing again, according to a new study. The tactics of the “terror bird”, officially called Andalgalornis, were [...]

Trio Finds A Pulsar, And So Can You

Three regular folks from Iowa and Germany are being credited with the discovery of a radio pulsar, spinning in space 17,000 light-years away, thanks to an unassuming screensaver program called Einstein @ Home. The program, which has been downloaded to 500,000 computers around the world over the past five years, almost literally turns volunteers into Einsteins at [...]

Meteor Shower Will Wow Gazers Overnight

There’s still time to charge that laptop and brew some coffee before the Perseid meteor shower peaks predawn Friday. OK, it’s easy to understand why the coffee will come in handy during the long watch overnight. But the laptop? Meteor gazers can join a NASA live chat with astronomer Bill Cooke. The Marshall Space Flight [...]

Stephen Hawking’s Warning: Abandon Earth Or Face Extinction

Let’s face it: The planet is heating up, Earth’s population is expanding at an exponential rate, and the the natural resources vital to our survival are running out faster than we can replace them with sustainable alternatives. Even if the human race manages not to push itself to the brink of nuclear extinction, it is [...]

Amazing Photos Of Insects And Spiders

A colored scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the head of a maggot or the larva of a bluebottle fly (Protophormia sp.) with tiny teeth-like fangs extending from its mouth. The maggots of this fly are used medicinally to clean wounds. The maggots are sterilised and placed in the wound, where they feed on dead tissue [...]

Fed Invents Most Accurate Clock In The World

If you are a sticker for time then your in luck. A young scientist at NIST has invented the world’s most precise clock. It’s based on quantum computing research and made out of aluminum. Till Rosenband is a physicist in NIST’s Time and Frequency Division. He has also been nominate for a Service to America [...]

Space Junk Could Destroy Communications On Earth

Space is so littered with debris that a collision between satellites could set off an “uncontrolled chain reaction” capable of destroying the communications network on Earth, a Pentagon report has warned. The volume of abandoned rockets, shattered satellites and missile shrapnel in the Earth’s orbit is reaching a “tipping point” and is now threatening the [...]

Scientists Create First Cell Controlled by Synthetic Genome

For the first time scientists have created an organism controlled by completely manmade DNA. Using the tools of synthetic biology, scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute installed a completely artificial genome inside a host cell without DNA. Like the bolt of lightening that awakened Frankenstein, the new genome invigorated the host cell, which began [...]

Steve Gschmeissner’s Incredible Insect Photos

Using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), retired scientific photographer Steve Gschmeissner, 61, from Bedford, England is able to magnify insects by up to a million times. The results show incredibly detailed images of creepy crawlies in 3D. A colored scanning electron micrograph of the head of a human flea (Pulex irritans) Steve chose insects because [...]

One Hour Hailstorm Caused 1,000-Year Freeze

An hour-long hailstorm from space may have changed the climate of the Earth in 11,000 BC, leading to a freeze lasting more than 1,000 years, scientists say. The catastrophe, caused by a disintegrating comet, wiped out large numbers of animal species and disrupted human cultures. A new theory put forward by according to Professor Bill [...]

CERN’s Success Closer To Origins Of Universe

A team of scientists in Switzerland have made a “major breakthrough” in understanding how the universe was created billions of years ago. The Large Hadron Collider, or the “Big Bang” machine, has created history by smashing together particles at the highest energy reading ever recreated in a laboratory. Tuesday’s experiment at the European Centre for [...]

3D Printers Create Whole New Design Dimension

Rapid prototyping allows designers to create things ranging from biomedical devices to multi-purpose household objects. Joint replacements, like artificial knees and hips, are increasingly common. They’re a boon for people with failing joints, but the replacement parts aren’t as durable as the originals. Usually made of metal and plastic and often cemented to the bone, [...]

Mind-Reading Using MRI Brain Scans

Brain scans revealed with reasonable accuracy which short film clip volunteers were thinking about. Scientists have used brain scans to delve into people’s minds and predict what films they are thinking about from one moment to the next. This is the first time brain imaging has been used to decipher such complex thoughts, which take [...]

Space Shuttle Endeavour Lands

Space shuttle Endeavour is home after two weeks in space, having delivered the final U.S. module and a “room with a view” to the International Space Station. STS-130 Commander George Zamka guided Endeavour to a landing at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility at 10:20 p.m. EST, to wrap up a 5.7 million mile [...]

Ants That Carry 100 Times Their Body Weight

This extraordinary image of an ant carrying 100 times its own body weight has scooped first prize in a science photography competition. The photo shows an Asian weaver ant hanging upside down on a glass-like surface and holding a 500mg weight in its jaws. It was captured by Dr Thomas Endlein of Zoology department at [...]

Space Station Gets 360 Degree View

The International Space Station is about to get what NASA is calling “a room with a view” — an observation dome that will give astronauts a window on the world unlike any other ever flown in space. Sunday morning, space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to blast off on a mission to the space station to [...]

Oceans Of Diamonds On Uranus And Neptune

Oceans of liquid diamond topped with solid “icebergs” of the precious gems could be on Uranus and Neptune, new research has revealed. The first ever detailed research into the melting point of diamond found it behaves like water during melting and freezing – with its solid form floating on the liquid. A large diamond ocean [...]

Acoustic Levitation: Shock waves That Stun

Scientists have developed a sound generator so powerful its shock waves can stun, and even kill people. Another group of researchers have developed another unusual application for sound: a method of “acoustic levitation” that could help maintain colonies on Mars or the moon by using high-pitched sound waves to remove alien dust. Blasting a high-pitched [...]

Cell Phone Radiation Prevents Alzheimer’s

After all the concern over possible damage to health from using mobile phones, scientists have found a potential benefit from radiation. Their work has been carried out on mice, but it suggests mobiles might protect against Alzheimer’s. Florida scientists found that phone radiation actually protected the memories of mice programmed to get Alzheimer’s disease. They [...]

Dark Matter ‘Beach Ball’ Unveiled

The giant halo of dark matter that surrounds our galaxy is shaped like a flattened beach ball, researchers say. It is the first definitive measure of the scope of the dark matter that makes up the majority of galaxies’ masses. The shape of this “dark matter halo” was inferred from the path of debris left [...]

Proteins That Repair DNA & Block Cancer

Scientists have shown how a family of “limpet-like” proteins play a crucial role in repairing the DNA damage which can lead to cancer. They hope the finding could pave the way for a new type of drug which could help kill cancer cells, and promote production of healthy replacements. The proteins seem to have a [...]

California Loses 18 Cubic Miles Of Groundwater

NASA satellites have weighed the water lost by California’s heartland since 2003. The Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins which support the highly productive Central Valley have shed over 18 cubic miles of water in that time. The data comes from the GRACE Mission which detects changes in gravity caused by water as it cycles [...]

NASA’s Atlantis Lands Safely In Florida

The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis has landed in Florida ending their 11-day mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis touched down under sunny skies at the Kennedy Space Center at 9:44 EST. During the mission, astronauts equipped the ISS with nearly 30,000 lbs. of spare parts. Five more shuttle flights are planned [...]

Scientists To Create Artificial Sun By 2018

Dozens of top nuclear scientists around the world are busy working on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) construction site in southern France. They plan to make an “artificial sun” in 2018.Currently there are seven national and supranational parties participating in the multibillion-euro ITER project. They are the European Union, India, Japan, People’s Republic of [...]

Russian Soyuz Capsule Lands Safely In Kazakhstan

Expedition 20 Commander Gennady Padalka,  Flight Engineer Michael Barratt and Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberte have completed their stay aboard the International Space Station. The three undocked from the Pirs docking compartment in the Soyuz TMA-14 at 8:07 p.m. EDT and safely landed in Kazakhstan at 11:32 PM Central Time, according to NASA. Padalka and Barratt [...]

NASA LCROSS Mission Successful

LCROSS Centaur Separation occurred at 9:50 p.m. EDT (6:50 p.m. PDT), Oct. 8. After separation, the spacecraft performed a 180 degree pitch maneuver (turning around) to reorient the LCROSS science payload towards the receding Centaur. LCROSS impacted the crater on Friday, October 9, 2009 at approximately 7:35 A.M. EST. NASA has successfully collected data after [...]

Our Galaxy: The Milky Way Panorama

This magnificent 360-degree panoramic image, covering the entire southern and northern celestial sphere, reveals the cosmic landscape that surrounds our tiny blue planet. This gorgeous starscape serves as the first of three extremely high-resolution images featured in the GigaGalaxy Zoom project, launched by ESO within the framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). [...]

The First Step To Finding Life In Space

Astronomers have finally found a place outside our solar system where there’s a firm place to stand — if only it weren’t so broiling hot. As scientists search the skies for life elsewhere, they have found more than 300 planets outside our solar system. But they all have been gas balls or can’t be proven [...]

Hubble’s Incredible Space Photo’s

The Hubble Space Telescope is to end its life in a blaze of glory after the final upgrade to the orbiting observatory was declared a success with the release of a spectacular series of images. The remarkable pictures, which include a butterfly-shaped nebula created by the death throes of a vast star and a “pillar [...]

Victoria Crater Mars-NASA Incredible Images

This image of Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at more of a sideways angle than earlier orbital images of this crater. The camera pointing was 22 degrees east of straight down, yielding a view comparable [...]

Discovery Set For Launch August 28th

NASA has fuelled the space shuttle Discovery and it is expected to lift off for the International Space Station at 1:36am (05:36 GMT) on Tuesday from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The mission is scheduled to last 13 days to deliver laboratory gear and mice for bone-loss experiments to the space station and supply [...]

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STS-127 Crew Celebrates Smooth Landing Aboard Endeavour

Space shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven astronauts touched down at 10:48 a.m. EDT at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, bringing an end to a complex mission to install the final section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory on the International Space Station. All of the STS-127 crew members are doing [...]