King Salmon: It's What's for Dinner. A killer whale snags a king salmon. Some killer whale populations favor king salmon so much that the whales will actually die when numbers of this largest member of the salmon family drop. Brian Gisborne
From The BBC:
Photo: Cheaper solar: Nanosolar’s thin-film panels.
An illustration of an alien exoplanet orbiting a distant star.
A morning's worth of output from the Espresso Book Machine, which used Google Books as the source of the data. (Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)Google is hell-bent on digitizing the world's books, but it's also aware that sometimes you just want to turn the pages.
On Demand Books, makers of the Espresso Book Machine, are expected to announce Thursday that they have been granted access to Google's library of public domain digital books for use with their product. The Espresso Book Machine can print a 300-page book in four minutes, complete with a cover and a bound edge. It ranges in price from $75,000 to $97,000, depending on the configuration, and is found mostly at universities, libraries, and institutions around the globe.
A trip to Phobos comes with extras (Image: NASA/JPL)FORGET the risk of exploding rockets or getting sideswiped by a wayward bit of space junk. Radiation may be the biggest hurdle to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and could put a damper on a recently proposed mission to Mars orbit.
A panel tasked by the White House with reviewing NASA's human space flight activities (New Scientist, 22 August, p 8) suggests sending astronauts to one of Mars's moons, Phobos or Deimos, among other possibilities raised in its report released last week (http://tinyurl.com/mbajav).
From Infoworld:
This photo from the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden, Netherlands shows authentic Dutch moon rocks on display. The detection of a fake moon rock in the Netherlands' Rijksmueum should serve as a wake-up call for more than 130 countries who received gifts of lunar rubble from both the Apollo 11 flight in 1969 and Apollo 17 three years later. Experts say the whereabouts are unknown of hundreds of tiny rocks scooped up by U.S. astronauts and given by the Nixon administration to friendly nations. Photo from APThe discovery of a fake moon rock in the Netherlands' national museum should be a wake-up call for more than 130 countries that received gifts of lunar rubble from both the Apollo 11 flight in 1969 and Apollo 17 three years later.
Nearly 270 rocks scooped up by U.S. astronauts were given to foreign countries by the Nixon administration. But according to experts and research by The Associated Press, the whereabouts of some of the small rocks are unknown.
MULTI-DIMENSIONAL: Researchers interact with their data, which can be streamed live, using 3-D glasses, special wireless controllers, and sensors embedded in the bridge's railings. (Gesture control and voice recognition are in the works.) © JOANN KUCHERA-MORIN
Giant Pitcher Plant: Nepenthes attenboroughii
Pee Over Hungary, By the Ruins of Essegvar: Last Wednesday, several skygazers scratched their heads when they saw this mysterious glow in the sky. Tamas Ladanyi
The new strain of rice offers hope for malnourished children in India. Reuters
Cooperating as a group is thought to boost the rush of endorphins,
A smile can be all it takes to make a woman feel better about her
Life first appeared in our oceans during the Archean eon when the moon was far closer to Earth. The air was too toxic for life on land
The power of the imagination is well-known: it's no surprise that scary music is scarier with your eyes closed. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mirko Pernjakovic)
For the first time, researchers have pinpointed the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mads Abildgaard)
A skeleton from ancient Roman times, found in the buried town of Venta Icenorum in Norfolk, England is buried on its side. Romans laid bodies out properly, however, suggesting this man might have met a murderous end. Credit: University of Nottingham.
MyLifeBits can be used to catalog and search personal archives.
The interface collates information from many sources and presents statistics
From New York Times:
This photo, provided by the Rwanda Development Board of Tourism and Conservation, shows the silverback gorilla, called Titus, in National Volcano Park in April 2009. Titus the Gorilla King, who became the world's most famous mountain gorilla after starring in Dian Fossey's "Gorillas in the Mist" and a BBC documentary, has died in Rwanda at the ripe old age of 35. (AFP/HO)
The Barringer Crater in Arizona, USA, is one of the largest
From Scientific American:
USGS researcher examining bass for abnormalities in the field. (Credit: Jo Ellen Hinck / U.S. Geological Survey)
This custom circuit is able to store up enough voltage from trees to be able to run a low-power sensor. Credit: University of Washington.
Lukasz Laska
THE first complete map of the lakes beneath Antarctica's ice sheets reveals the continent's secret water network is far more dynamic than we thought. This could be acting as a powerful lubricant beneath glaciers, contributing to sea level rise.
Unlike previous lake maps, which are confined to small regions, Ian Joughin at the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues mapped 124 subglacial lakes across Antarctica using lasers on NASA's ICESat satellite
From The BBC:
From The Globe And Mail:
The moons of Saturn passing in front of their parent planet.
From Sydney Morning Herald:
Wine tastes different to those who are given information on the product before a wine tasting, tests where the test people received information on the wine before and after the tasting have shown. (Credit: iStockphoto)
Mr Laliberte in a rare serious mood at the Star City training centre
Photo: Wind power: Wind power plants in Xinjiang, China. Credit: Chris Lim 
Artist's conception of NASA's planned Mars rover, Curiosity. See other rovers in our gallery (Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech)
Jupiter (shown in a 2006 Hubble Space Telescope picture) captured a comet in 1949, and the "temporary moon" orbited the giant planet for 12 years before being cast aside, astronomers announced in September 2009.Image courtesy NASA via AP
Scorpius Shoots for the Moon: Armadillo Aerospace's Scorpius vehicle completed a mock lunar landing on Earth -- next step, space Armadillo Aerospace 
Microsoft unveiled a twist on the Internet search experience on Monday with a new feature
Asteroceras, a Jurassic ammonite from England.
From Discover Magazine:
CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF?: The U.S. Navy has ordered more than 60,000 gallons of alternative fuels derived from weeds and algae--and hopes to power planes and ships with them in the near future. Courtesy of U.S. Navy
