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Image of the Week

Anolis fowleri, one of more than 100 anoles of the Greater Antilles. [Credit: Luke Mahler] 6/30/2010
A Niche of Your Own: Anolis lizards illuminate island biodiversity

More than 100 species of Anolis inhabit the islands of Jamaica, Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. According to a new study in the journal Evolution, they did not tiptoe into this diversity, but took the islands by evolutionary storm.

Schematic of silicon-carbon nanocomposite granule; carbon black particle 'branches' coated by silicon nanoparticle 'apples'. [Courtesy of Gleb Yushin] 3/19/2010
Better Battery? Nanocomposite could boost power

Smartphones and other power-hungry personal electronics proliferate, green-minded motorists pine for future electric vehicles, and everyone needs a better battery. One effort to shrink the power source while stretching capacity is based on tiny, twiggy carbon nanospheres festooned with minute silicon "apples."

Cellphone? Insect? Transformer? A robot with chaos-control. [Credit: Network Dynamics Group, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization] 3/2/2010
Out of Chaos, Ordered Walking: Better locomotion from a robot's erratic movements

Attempting to go beyond the controlled but inflexible walking patterns of most robots, researchers have tapped the chaos control to overcome problems and generate novel gaits.

Designers of the Burj Khalifa used a buttressed core design to allow it to become the world's tallest building. [Courtesy Emaar Properties] 1/17/2010
World's Tallest Building Rises in Dubai

Rising like a steel and glass splinter from the desert and surrounded by its own human-made lake, the world's tallest building has opened for business in Dubai. At 828 meters, the Burj Khalifa shatters existing records.

Tiny the Snowman: two tin beads make up this nanosnowman, one fifth the width of a hair [Credit: David Cox] 12/29/2009
Tiny the Snowman Sends Nano New Year Cheer 

Built not of snow but minute tin beads, the nanosnowman still spreads good cheer.

Chi Cygni, a red giant star as shown in this artist's conception of Betelgeuse, pulses in and out as it nears death. [Credit: Credit: ESO/L. Calçada] 12/22/2009
Death Star: Chi Cygnus' pulses toward a lovely end 

The future demise of our sun is being played out 550 light years away by a star in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, as a death scene that is drawn-out but spectacular.

Trypanosoma cruzi infects a human cell. PDNF (green) on the parasite's surface activates Akt kinase (purple), halting apoptosis. [Credit: Tufts Univ.] 12/10/2009
Parasite Life Insurance: Ensuring host life, trypanosomes dodge death

In its quest to infect and multiply, the cell parasite that causes Chagas disease enlists the help of an unlikely partner, the host cell itself. New research finds that Trypanosoma cruzi hijacks host signals that prolong the cell's life and prevent the parasite's death.

Fluorescence micrographs and SEM images show more cancer cells captured on the silicon nanopillar (SiNW) than the flat substrate. [Credit: UCLA] 11/23/2009
Cancer's Fly Paper: A nanostructure trap for tumor cells

A new device vastly improves the so-called liquid biopsy to detect circulating tumor cells, attracting and trapping them like insects on flypaper, using a silicon chip festooned with "nanopillars."

Galaxy M83 from the ground (left) and from Hubble's new WFC3 camera [Credits: NASA, ESA, R.O'Connell, WFC3 Science Oversight Committee, ESO] 11/10/2009
Bejeweled View: Hubble captures starbirth in Southern Pinwheel

Sparkling like a jewel-studded necklace, the spiral arms of galaxy M83 appear bedecked in rubies and pale blue diamond dust in this view from the Hubble Telescope's newest camera

Mycena silvaelucens, a new mushroom species from Borneo, looks unremarkable in the day, but glows green when the lights go out. [Credit: Brian Perry] 10/13/2009
Glowing Report: New luminescent mushrooms

Clinging to a tree in Borneo, researchers have found a glowing mushroom species new to science. A worldwide sweep has added seven fungal species to the pantheon of known glowers.

Mosaic image reconstruction of a lesion on a rat's brain after hydrogel treatment (green, neurites; red, blood vessels). [Credit: Clemson University] 9/16/2009
Brain-Healing Hydrogel: Treatment for traumatic injury

The fragile brain heals poorly after damage, if at all. Now an injectable biomaterial gel packed with growth factors is showing promise in regenerating tissue after what is being called "the signature injury" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—traumatic brain injury. 

Hurricane Bill at 10:45 a.m. EDT, August 18th 2009, imaged in water vapor sensitive wavelengths by the GOES Satellite. [Credit: NOAA] 8/18/2009
Raging Bill: 2009 Hurricane Season Begins 

After a long lull in the action, storm generation for the Atlantic hurricane season of 2009 jumped back to life as two new storms weakened and another fledged into the season's first hurricane—and this one looks to be a doozy.

The newly discovered bare-faced bulbul (Pycnonotus hualon)—Asia's first bald songbird. [Credit: Iain Woxvold, University of Melbourne] 8/6/2009
A Bald-faced Truth: Bare-headed songbird discovered

Many doubted it existed, but 14 years after it's original sighting in Laos, the Bare-faced Bulbul has been rediscovered—the first bald songbird known in Asia.

Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong descends from the Lunar Module July 20, 1969. From restored footage of the first moon landing. [Credit: NASA] 7/22/2009
One Clear Step: Apollo 11 Moon landing footage restored for 40th anniversary

Forty years ago video of humans' first foray onto the surface of the moon were broadcast live to television sets around the world. NASA has commemorated the 40-year anniversary with a restoration of the historic footage.

A plume of ash from Sarychev Peak Volcano punched through the cloud layer as the International Space Station passed over June 12, 2009. [Credit: NASA] 7/2/2009
Bombs Bursting in Air: Volcano puts on a show

The Sarychev Peak Volcano puts on a show of an eruption as explosive plume of billowing ash punches through the cloud layer, carrying with it a bubble of white steam.

Hywind, the first floating wind turbine, can harvest energy far out to sea where wind is strongest and most consistent. [Credit: StatoilHydro] 6/24/2009
Wind Power Goes Deep: The first floating wind turbine

A analysis has found that wind power could supply all of the world's energy needs. And now the wind energy industry has headed into deep water, literally.


Nano Medicator: This layered micelle is a drug-delivering nanoparticle that targets the fatty plaques of atherosclerosis. 6/15/2009
Nanoceutical: Drug-delivery nanoparticles target atherosclerosis 

No one wants to go under a surgeon's scalpel, yet drugs can miss their mark. Researchers have created drug-delivery nanoparticles meant to target fatty plaques with the precision of a surgical strike.

The dynamic heart system, designed to test new surgical techniques and tools. [Credit: Andy Richards, N. Carolina State Univ.] 5/28/2009
Bizarro Heart: A machine that pumps an organ

In DC Comic's Bizarro World everything is the reverse of what you know. Engineers seem to have strayed into that world of opposites, designing a heart machine that turns the concept of the artificial heart on its head.

Driving backward and dragging her frozen front wheel, Spirit captured this view of her progress on her 1,871st sol (4/8/09) [Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] 5/8/2009
Spirit's Senior Moments: A Martian rover forgets 

Even robotic interplanetary explorers have senior moments. The Mars rover Spirit has shown her age recently with unexplained memory lapses.

Nematodes that ate phosphate-starved bacteria show the spots of 4/14/2009
Lessons of Red Death: Keeping bacteria happy and patients healthy 

When nematodes dined on phosphate-starved bacteria, the microbes caused the worms to break out in vermillion spots and eventually succumb to "Red Death." Now the worms' fates are helping scientists understand sudden death in human hospital patients—when docile gut bacteria turn deadly.

A spot-free sun on March 31, 2009 captured in a white light continuum image by SOHO's Michelson Doppler Imager. [Credit: SOHO, NASA/ESA] 4/2/2009
Spot-Free Shine: Sun heads for new solar minimum

The face of the sun was strikingly blank for much of 2008, marking the lowest level of sunspot formation in almost a century. As the calm continues the sun seems to be testing the boundaries of tranquility and aiming for a new minimum this year.

Flood from Redoubt Volcano's summit crater flowing through an ice gorge on Drift Glacier, 3/23/09. [Credit: Cyrus Read, Courtesy of AVO/USGS] 3/25/2009
No Doubt: Redoubt Volcano Rumbles to Life

After Alaska's Redoubt Volcano rocked violently awake at 10:38 p.m. on the night of March 22, 2009, icemelt from it's north glacier flooded the Drift valley, creating waterfalls, carrying along blocks of ice, and leaving behind a black tephra sludge.

On March 14, 2008 a tornado cut a 6-mile swath through Atlanta during a drought, much to the surprise of climatologists. [Credit: NOAA] 3/12/2009
Tornado's Urban Alley: A surprising storm brews in dry downtown Atlanta

Tornadoes, unruly beasts that they are, don't follow many rules. But a storm that cut a 6-mile swath through downtown Atlanta in March of 2008 was a real rule-breaker. Researchers discovered how this meteorological surprise sprung up in an urban area in the middle of a drought.

Fossilized cranium and finite element model of Australopithecus africanus. Bright colors indicate high strain. (Courtesy of Gerhard Weber) 3/4/2009
A Hard Nut to Crack: Australopithecus face indicates an unexpected feeding ecology

Australopithecus africanus seems to have been well adapted to cracking open large nuts, despite a lack of microwear evidence on tooth fossils showing the species did much of this. Now a study of feeding biomechanics suggests that it may have been the evolutionary lean times that shaped the distinctive face of our ancient relative.

Threadlike Ebola virions bud from a cell (center). The virus disabled the cell's tetherin protein. [Credit: Paul Bates/Univ. of Penn. School of Med.] 2/3/2009
Ebola Unfettered: Virus evades immunity's grasp

Ebola virus spreads like wildfire in the body, killing ninety percent of its victims. Researchers recently found that the virus disables a key cellular defense, freeing it for virulent spread.

A modern-day man and giraffe, to scale, and the pterosaur, Hatzegotpteryx, which leapfrogged into the air. [Credit: Mark Witton] 1/21/2009
Leap Frogger: Pterosaurs hip-hopped into the air

It is hard enough to imagine a 500 pound, furry reptile the size of a giraffe soaring overhead. How did the largest pterosaurs launch their prehistoric bulk into the air? A new study reveals the surprising answer.

Computer model of solar wind entering breach in Earth's magnetic field (right). Solar wind density: red=high, blue=low. [Credit: Jimmy Raeder/UNH] 12/31/2008
Breach Flips Magnetosphere Dogma Upside-Down

The discovery of a gaping hole in the Earth's magnetosphere has turned the common understanding of the workings of that protective magnetic bubble on its head.

Red-eyed treefrog embryos position their branched gills near the oxygen rich face of the egg. [Karen Warkentin, Boston Univ./ STRI] 11/17/2008
Best Behavior: Frog embryos find egg's oxygen sweet spot

Eggs may not seem to do anything except sit around waiting to hatch, but their residents inside can do lots of behaving. Red-eyed treefrog embryos twist, turn, and spread their gills to avoid asphyxiation.

Single known specimen of the newly described ant Martialis heureka. [Credit/courtesy of C. Rabeling & M. Verhaagh/Nat.Acad.Sci.] 11/3/2008
Eureka! An ant from Mars

Biologists had never seen anything on Earth like it when they first laid eyes on this new ant species. Pale, minute, and blind, Martialis heureka appears to be the sole survivor of a lost lineage.

A nanonet grown from titanium and silicon (magnified 50,000 times) [Credit: Angewandte Chemie International] 9/11/2008
Nothing But Net: Nanotechnology grows something new

It looks like a scene from science fiction, but the only thing otherworldly about this architectural fragment is its size. Nanonets hold promise for even smaller circuitry or fuel cell technology.

The Brains of the Operation: a researcher holds a robot's living neural processor. [Courtesy Univ. of Reading] 8/27/2008
Living Memory: Robot with a biological brain

This little robot may have wheels and electronic sensors in place of legs and eyes, but living neurons guide its movements. "Gordon" thinks with a biological brain.

 


14 million year old moss from the vanished Antarctic tundra still exists in warmer bog and lake habitats 1000 miles north [Courtesy of A. Lewis] 8/15/2008
Big Chill: Fossils recall a greener Antarctic past

A snippet of moss that last extended its leaves 14 million years ago in a boggy tundra habitat are among other relics discovered from Antarctica's wetter past. These are helping scientists reconstruct the events of a rapid cooling event which brought the polar ice sheets that blanket the continent to this day.

Jupiter's newest storm was consumed by the Great Red Spot 9 weeks after birth (HST). [Credit: NASA, ESA, A. Simon-Miller, N. Chanover, and G. Orton] 7/28/2008
See Spot Eat Spot: The birth and death of Jupiter's newest storm

Of all of the planets, the colorful and stormy Jupiter can nearly always be counted on for a good show. But the gas giant has outdone itself with an atmospheric drama between its Great Red Spot and its newest red storm that is fit for a Greek tragedy—complete with birth, conflict, and violent fratricide.

Two strains of Proteus mirabilis bacteria swarm towards each other, false-color. [Courtesy of K.Gibbs, J.Milner-Brage, E.P Greenberg, Science] 7/15/2008
Social Animals: Genes for swarming and territorial defense ID’d in bacteria

The complex social behaviors of bees, wolves, or dolphins seem far beyond the ken of a simple bacterium, but the swarming bacteria Proteus mirabilis can recognize colony members and defend its territory. Microbiologists have pieced together the genes that allow the amazing social behavior of these single-celled organisms.

A circuit that uses excitons for computing flashes light as the particles decay to release photons. [Credit: Leonid Butov/UCSD] 6/30/2008
Flash in the Pan? Future of faster computing with excitons

Computing in a flash may one day become computing with a flash—of light. Physicists have created the first integrated circuits that use light-emitting particles called excitons to transfer signals, a technology that could crank up computer communications to light speed.

Restoration of mammal-like reptile Thrinaxodon emerging from its Antarctic den. [Credit: JVP/ ©Jude Swales] 6/18/2008
Old Digs: Early Triassic burrows found in the Antarctic

Antarctica was not always a frozen continent. Once small creatures scurried about and burrowed into the land. Fossilized evidence of this Triassic-era tunneling is revealing clues about Antarctica's once-mild climate.

USGS ShakeMap: Eastern Sichuan, China earthquake May 12, 2008 5/19/2008
China Shakes: Mapping earthquake intensity

Tibet's desire to edge away from China politically is in ironic contrast to what the two entities are doing geologically.

Mars' moon, Phobos, which means 4/22/2008
Hi-Def Anxiety: Colorful Photo of Fearless Phobos

Small, misshapen Phobos has not had an easy time of it. The larger of Mars' two satellites, the moon takes its name from the Greek personification of fear.

[Credit: M. Snyder, starknakedfish.com/divingmaluku.com] 4/14/2008
Pokémon Fish: New species of angler rears its head

The name "frogfish" doesn't quite do the creature justice. The newlydiscovered reef denizen, above, is even hard to identify as a fish at first.

[Credit: Science@NASA] 4/4/2008
Spring Green: The Arctic Aurora Springs to Life

On a fjord-trimmed island 350 kilometers inside the Arctic Circle on Norway's northwest coast sits the city of Tromsø, the "Paris of the North." But the riotous green that erupts over this icy cultural outpost each spring is world's away from the springtime that colors its French nicknamesake to the south.

Wake turbulence in the air of the kind formed when an aircraft takes off or lands. [Credit: NASA Langley Research Center.] 3/19/2008
Project Safe Runway: Supercomputer simulates airplane's vortex

Foamy swirls churned up by passing cruise ships can capsize boats caught in their wakes. Though largely invisible, air turbulence can be just as dangerous, threatening to flip airplanes that follow too close to others on takeoff and landing.

Grey jungle fowl. [Credit: John Corder, World Pheasant Association.] 3/10/2008
The Origin of the Chicken: Genetics shows Darwin narrowly missed the mark on chicken ancestry

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer to that question is simple, since plenty of avian ancestors hatched out of eggs long before the first chicken stalked across a barnyard.

A magnified SEM (scanning electron microscope) image of two microfiber brushes meeting 2/26/2008
Power Threads: Nanotech clothes would make electricity from motion

How would you like a T-shirt that powers your iPod, tent fabric that lights a windy campsite, or curtains that charge small appliances as they flap in the summer breeze?

Ol' Swollen Man River: The Mississippi rolls along with its load of agricultural runoff. [Credit: Jerry Ting] 2/11/2008
A Gathering of Waters: Agriculture discharges massive quantities of water into Mississippi

As a river boat pilot, Mark Twain memorized ever turning of the Mississippi River and later sent his characters polling down its banks. But the great American author might not recognize this great American river today.

Mothra in Space: Astronomers find moth-like stellar disk of dust 1/22/2008
Mothra in Space: Astronomers find moth-like stellar disk of dust

Astronomers scanning the skies for Sun-like stars recently discovered a strange luminous structure that may add new insights to planet formation and evolution. The object also happens to look a lot like a giant moth in flight. Coincidence or the imminent return of the Monster Wars? You be the judge.

Pink salmon fry infected with sea lice. [Credit: Alexandra Morton] 12/27/2007
Lousing it Up: Fish farm parasites endanger wild salmon

Pink salmon fry infected with sea lice. [Credit: Alexandra Morton]

Three-dimensional electron tomography reveals the secret lives of organelles within a skin cell: Velcro-like cadherins that knit cells together [sandy brown], nucleus and nuclear envelope [blue] with pores [red], microtubules [green], mitochondria [purple], and endoplasmic reticulum [steel blue]. [Credit: Achilleas Frangakis, EMBL.] 12/11/2007
Art in Miniature: Microscopy reveals molecular organization of skin

Three-dimensional electron tomography reveals the secret lives of organelles within a skin cell: Velcro-like cadherins that knit cells together [sandy brown], nucleus and nuclear envelope [blue] with pores [red], microtubules [green], mitochondria [purple], and endoplasmic reticulum [steel blue]. [Credit: Achilleas Frangakis, EMBL.]

A 12/4/2007
Before They Twinkled: An early universe of dark stars?

A "dark star", in this artist's conception, as it might be viewed in the infrared (heat). [Credit: University of Utah]

The waves of an undular bore roll over Des Moines on October 3, 2007. [Credit: Iowa Mesonet Skycam] 10/30/2007
An Exciting Bore: Atmospheric antics and gravity waves over Iowa

The waves of an undular bore roll over Des Moines on October 3, 2007. [Credit: Iowa Mesonet Skycam]

A small spot in the brain is the seat of inhibition [Credit: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences] 10/10/2007
Exercise "Free Won't": Mapping inhibition in the brain

A small spot in the brain has been identified as the origin of one's "free wont"--the opposite of free will, or the seat of inhibition.

Microscopic images of wounded epithelial cells in the gum... 8/15/2007 8:43:44 PM
Every Cell is Illuminated: Do gums gain from gentle pain?

Microscopic images of wounded epithelial cells in the gum and resulting expression of the c-fos gene (in red). (Credit: Medical College of Georgia)

(Courtesy of: NASA/JPL/ University of Arizona/Ames/Space Science Institute) 7/27/2007
Saturn's Sponge: The mysteries of Hyperion revealed

Saturn's small moon, Hyperion, doesn't quite live up to the ringed majesty of its planetary parent. Nor is it at all like the luminous orb that gazes down from Earth's night sky.

A young neuron contacts, encroaches on, and takes over a synapse. [Courtesy of Nicolas Toni, Salk Institute for Biological Studies] 6/28/2007
The Young and the Ruthless: New neurons muscle out the old

When faced with crowded conditions and limited real estate, pioneers and budding suburbanites head for wide open spaces. Neurons born into the mature brain don't have that choice.

(Credit: NOAA) 6/7/2007
Rare tropical cyclone over the Arabian Sea

This METEOSAT satellite image, taken on June 5th, 2007 at 1200 Z UTC, shows tropical cyclone Gonu over the Arabian Sea, approaching the coast of Oman.

A box jellyfish looks around. [Anders Garm] 4/6/2007
Here's Looking at You: Box jellyfish use complex eyes to navigate

Box jellies are the Lamborghinis of the jellyfish world. While their better-known brethren—the true jellyfish—often just drift on ocean currents with slowly undulating bells, box jellies have a need for speed.
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