Graduate student Gyu-boong Jo optimizes the laser beam position on the mirror of the optical setup that produced an ultracold gas of lithium atoms. (Credit: Photo by Patrick Gillooly)
Photo: Human urine mixed with wood ash was the ultimate eco-friendly fertiliser, according to researchers
Photo: Cheaper solar: Nanosolar’s thin-film panels.
OIL FROM THE SUN Researchers propose creating a biological solar panel, which will contain diatoms instead of photovoltaic cells. Diatoms, microalgae that are found in all aquatic and moist environments, first appeared more than 180 million years ago. © KATIV, COURTESY OF ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
No one is sure why Homo sapiens is the only primate to have lost its body hair
Psychologists have suggested that handwriting changes when someone is lying because the brain has to work harder to invent facts Photo: GETTY 
From The Independent:
In recent years Adderall and Ritalin, another stimulant, have been adopted as cognitive enhancers.
Of course.
And yet something like that has happened in the field of global warming in which a major scientist has announced that the world, in contrast to his previous belief, is actually cooling.
This was the analogy made by columnist Lorne Gunter in the Calgary Herald:
Photo: Dolphin. Scientists are calling for urgent research to understand the impact of renewable energy developments on marine life. (Credit: Dr Matthew Witt, University of Exeter.)
From Live Science:WASHINGTON — Dan Brown's latest book, "The Lost Symbol," is woven with a maze of secretive plots, conspiracies, symbols and codes. "Symbol" is another thriller by Brown that draws inspiration from a mixture of science and mysticism.
One of the main characters is a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's vast support center, a location that is off-limits to the public. The real science in "Symbol" takes a turn toward fiction when Brown suggests that noetics — a metaphysical discipline that attempts to examine the connection between human and supernatural intelligence — will revolutionize human knowledge. The "research" is based on the work of institutions that were formed in the late 1970s, during the height of New Age mysticism.
Safer: The new-style Army helmet will allow troops to fire more accurately in the prone position than the older version
Credit: Technology Review
SEE SPOT SPIN: An impression of what the dwarf planet Haumea's dark,
The International Space Station's robotic arm reaches out to capture the Japanese HTV cargo ship in an artist's rendering. The tricky cosmic catch, slated to happen on September 17, 2009, might affect the orbiting outpost's ultimate lifespan by offering a cheaper way of delivering supplies to space, experts say. Due to budget concerns, the space station is currently slated to be deorbited in 2015. Picture courtesy Canadian Space Agency 
Mars is red now (left), but it may have looked charcoal (right) in the past
From Slate:
(James Kelleher/The Orange County Register) 
Smoke visualization in Oxford University's wind tunnel showing the airflow over a flying locust's wings. (Credit: Animal Flight Group, Dept. of Zoology, Oxford University and Dr John Young, UNSW@ADFA)
Julia Barnathan (standing), curriculum developer for Northwestern's Office of STEM Education Partnerships, assists a student with a lesson in radiation that uses iLabs to access a geiger counter at the University of Queensland, Australia. Credit: Amanda Morris, Office for Research, Northwestern University
From The BBC:
From The BBC:
From CNET:
From Future Pundit:The big smoker countries in Europe have much higher rates of heat disease death under age 65.
While heart disease remains the leading cause of death in Europe, mortality rates are falling in most (but not all) countries, according to new findings released by the EuroHeart mapping project.(1) However, this detailed research, part of a three-year programme to analyse cardiovascular health and prevention policies in 16 European countries, also reveals huge inequalities among countries both in the rate of cardiovascular mortality and in national prevention programmes.
Photo: Cutting-edge molecular gastronomy at Chicago’s Alinea: a sphere of grape foam injected with walnut milk and covered in frozen and powdered Maytag blue cheese. Lara Kastner/SIPA
The cover of this issue of Galaxy features an unusual space launch concept, but an article inside had more realistic and interesting insights.
This artist's conception of the double-star system DI Herculis illustrates the key findings from the new research. Spectroscopic observations showed that the two stars are both tipped over almost horizontally, relative to the plane of their orbits around each other. Because they are rotating rapidly which creates equatorial bulges, the tidal interactions between the two slows down a regular variation in the plane of the orbits, called precession -- a slowing that had been a mystery for three decades. (Credit: Courtesy of Simon Albrecht)
From Live Science:
(Click Image to Enlarge)
From The BBC:
From Autopia:
(Click image to Enlarge)The Guardian recently interviewed Xiao Ziniu, the director general of the Beijing Climate Center.
Excerpts:
A 2C rise in global temperatures will not necessarily result in the calamity predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), China’s most senior climatologist has told the Guardian.
Read more ....
Despite what we may have learned as we grew up, some misconceptions often remain with us as adults, says a new study. Credit: iStockphoto
Fake video footage can persuade almost half of viewers to
When the solar cycle was at a minimum level in 1996, the Sun sprayed Earth with relatively few, weak high-speed streams containing turbulent magnetic fields (left). In contrast, the Sun bombarded Earth with stronger and longer-lasting streams last year (right) even though the solar cycle was again at a minimum level. The streams affected Earth's outer radiation belt, posing a threat to earth-orbiting satellites, and triggered space weather disturbances, lighting up auroras in the sky at higher latitudes.
Purple ocher sea stars prey on mussels. Credit: Dave Cowles
In a surprise, high-resolution data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, right, shows indications of hydrogen both inside and outside of permanently shadowed craters. (Credit: NASA)
Apollo, God of the Sun. The bust of the recently discovered statue of the Greek god Apollo appears above. The massive statue, around four meters (13 feet) in height, is one of only about a dozen in existence. Francesco D'Andria
From Wired Science:
A man walks behind a model of an Anopheles mosquito in the new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, in London September 8, 2009. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth
Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte, who owns Cirque du Soleil, is set to become the world's seventh and Canada's first space tourist Photo: REUTERS 
From The Guardian:
Top: A global mosaic of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, constructed from the best images collected during flybys of the Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and Galileo spacecraft. Bottom: A few layers of the geologic map of Ganymede, showing the boundaries between light terrain (white) and dark terrain (brown), and the massive number of tectonic features in the light terrain (black lines). The map is being used to analyze stress fields that could have been responsible for ripping apart the surface of Ganymede in the past (red arrows). (Credit: Image courtesy of Europlanet Media Centre)
