1956/1958- The Asian Flu: Far less deadly than the Spanish flu, the Asian flu of 1956-1958 killed about 70,000 Americans. The strain mutated from an earlier H2N2 flu that had originated in Russia and gone pandemic in 1889. With its relatively low death rate and long duration, the Asian Flu perfectly exemplifies how most pandemics don’t threaten the collapse of civilizations, but merely exacerbate the problems already caused by seasonal flu. A girl gargling broth in Sagamihara Hospital, Japan, during the 1957 flu outbreak, courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine, via Flickr.com 
Left: The air-lock entrance to the lab’s hot zone. Right: A biohazard suit protects Peter Jahrling, chief virus hunter at the Integrated Research Facility in Fort Detrick, Md.
In this artist’s conception, a coronal mass ejection from the sun is mapped in 3-D by NASA’s pair of STEREO sun-observing satellites. (NASA) 
Foxes (such as this red fox photographed in 2008 in Wyoming) may be spreading rabies like humans spread the flu—through simple socialization—in northern Arizona, experts say. The rabies virus appears to have mutated surprisingly quickly and become virulent in foxes and skunks, experts said in April 2009. Photograph by Andy Carpenean/Laramie Boomerang via AP 
Photo: Getty Images
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has thrown a lifeline to scores of projects awarding 81 $100,000 (£65,000) grants Photo: BLOOMBERG NEWS 
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on Fermi detects gamma-rays by tracking the electrons positrons they produce after striking layers of tungsten. This ability also makes the LAT an excellent tool for exploring high-energy cosmic rays. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)
This natural "desert pavement" in Israel's Negev Desert has been dated to about 1.8 million years old, the olest known vast expanse of surface area on the planet. Credit: Ari Matmon, Hebrew University
The first modern European: Forensic artist Richard Neave reconstructed the face based on skull fragments from 35,000 years ago
In July 2000 the sun was at a peak in activity, as seen by the speckling of sunspots spied by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. But the sun was a blank disk in March 2009, when it was the quietest it has been since the 1950s. The current sunspot deficit has caused some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age of the early 1600s and late 1700s, a prolonged, localized cold spell linked to a decline in solar activity. Images courtesy SOHO, the EIT Consortium, and the MDI Team 
In the three to four million years before the Permian-Triassic extinction, illustrated here, the seas were already oxygen-starved, according to a new study. The stagnant depths were a haven for bacteria that belched poison that crippled life on Earth, leaving it vulnerable to the volcanic knockout punch that would soon come. Lunar and Planetary Institute
Photo: Some websites will leave your computer infected with viruses or worms, but the "black holes" are just as bad (Image: Image Source / Rex)
Image: "Microfabrication Of Three-Dimensional Engineered Scaffolds," By Jeffrey T. Borenstein, Eli J. Weinberg, Brian K. Orrick, Cathryn Sundback, Mohammad R. Kaazempur-Mofrad And Joseph P. Vacanti, In TISSUE ENGINEERING, Vol. 13, No. 8; 2007 
From The BBC:
The disappearance of sunspots happens every few years, but this time it's gone on far longer than anyone expected - and there is no sign of the Sun waking up. AFP
The cosmic microwave temperature fluctuations from the 5-year WMAP data seen over the full sky. The average temperature is 2.725 Kelvin (degrees above absolute zero; equivalent to -270 C or -455 F), and the colors represent the tiny temperature fluctuations, as in a weather map. Red regions are warmer and blue regions are colder by about 0.0002 degrees. (Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team)
