The supercomputer Hal in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey embodies our worst fears about autonomous machines. Photograph: RGA
The map shows groundwater changes in India during 2002-08, with losses in red and gains in blue, based on GRACE satellite observations. The estimated rate of depletion of groundwater in northwestern India is 4.0 centimeters of water per year, equivalent to a water table decline of 33 centimeters per year. Increases in groundwater in southern India are due to recent above-average rainfall, whereas rain in northwestern India was close to normal during the study period. (Credit: I. Velicogna/UC Irvine)
From Live Science:
Credit: Technology Review 
Image: Still grounded (Image: Boeing) 
Photo via Pathways of Altruism
Two USGS scientists analyze fish for mercury in the St. Marys River in northern Florida.
SunFlower Solar Panels: This isn't your mother's garden. David Newsome/GOOD Magazine 
From The Economist:
From Stltoday.com:
Personality traits associated with chronic worrying can lead to earlier death, at least in part because these people are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, according to research from Purdue University. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mikael Damkier)
A photo and depiction of the pterosaur tracks that suggest an ancient landing strip.
Space Shuttle Discovery
The 25ft-long car will race across the desert in California to try and break a land speed record.
Photo: White spaces: Accessing the Internet over unused portions of TV spectrum could provide good long-range connectivity in rural areas, and help fill in gaps in city networks. Microsoft researchers tested a new protocol, called White Fi, using the device shown here. Credit: Microsoft Research
Gone Fission : See it bigger. John MacNeil 
Orion Exploration Vehicle
In this illustration by Yi Zhang, quantum dots are depicted as gold spheres that attract DNA strands linked to cancer risks. When the quantum dots are exposed to certain types of light, they transfer the energy to fluorescent molecules, shown as pink globes, that emit a glow. This enables researchers to detect and count the DNA strands linked to cancer. (Credit: Image courtesy of Johns Hopkins University)
Anthropologists work to excavate Qesem Cave, where early human hunters carved up their prey. The cave was discovered in Israel about nine years ago. Credit: Qesem Cave Project
Turning water into jet fuel (Image: Stocktrek Images/Getty) 
PARTS LIST: Relying on the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which certain crystals and other materials generate electricity when twisted or flexed, this new device harvests energy from tiny vibrations. Credit: ISNS
A view of King Tutenkhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, close to Luxor in 2007. The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned. (AFP/File/Cris Bouroncle)
From The New York Times:
STAN HONDA / AFP / Getty
FILE - This is an undated portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What killed Mozart so suddenly in 1791? A report in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine, a medical journal published in Philadelphia, suggests it might have been something far more common: a strep infection. (AP Photo)
Legal pounds Photo: CORBIS 
The study looked at bee aggression in European (pictured) and Africanized honey bees. (Credit: Photo by Diana Yates)
Foiling the Flood Graham Murdoch 
Getting ISPs to cooperate could help in the fight against worms (Image: Thomas Northcut/Getty)
The smell of fresh sea air is unmistakable Photo: Getty 
Popcorn contains high levels of antioxidants, according to a study by US chemical experts.
Click Image to Enlarge
Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago. Because the new device, called a "spaser," is the first of its kind to emit visible light, it represents a critical component for possible future technologies based on "nanophotonic" circuitry. The color diagram (a) shows the nanolaser's design: a gold core surrounded by a glasslike shell filled with green dye. Scanning electron microscope images (b and c) show that the gold core and the thickness of the silica shell were about 14 nanometers and 15 nanometers, respectively. A simulation of the SPASER (d) shows the device emitting visible light with a wavelength of 525 nanometers. (Credit: Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University)
Like sound or light waves, tsunamis have a wavelength, crests and troughs that could be cancelled out to effectively cloak, say, an oil rig and protect it from the waves, based on new technology. But practically pulling such complex cloaking off will require a lot more research. Credit: Stockxpert
Climate change? Not bothered (Image: Natalie Schimpf)
Tiny laser: This simulation shows the intensity of light around a new type of laser, called a spaser, when operating in a plasmon-producing mode. The concentration of plasmons is most intense at the gold sphere that makes up its core. The inner black circle indicates the position of the sphere, which is coated with a dye-embedded silica shell, marked by the outer black line. Credit: Nature
From Breitbart/AFP:
From The New York Times:
From The BBC:
An African Lion yawns next to a lioness in the Maasai Mara, approximately 400 kilometres southwest of Nairobi, in 2006. Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades. (AFP/File/Tony Karumba)
Xbox Live Lives Here Simon Norfolk via The New York Times 
Researchers say that a chemical profile of decomposition could eventually lead to a portable device for detecting human bodies at crime scenes and disaster areas. (Credit: Adam Dylewski, American Chemical Society)
From Live Science:
From Gadget Lab:
Domestic source-to-be?At 10 megawatts, the University of Missouri Research Reactor is the largest university research reactor in the country. Within two months, officials there will submit a proposal to the Energy Department to build a facility that would ultimately allow domestic production of a medical isotope that's currently in critically short supply.University of Missouri Research Reactor
An alien ship hovers over the planet in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'