Thursday, July 30, 2015

Elephants on Parade

In the first morning light, female elephants and their young cross the plains of Kenya’s Amboseli National Park to feed in the marshes, says Daniel Pinheiro. Mount Kilimanjaro and its famed mantle of snow looms behind.



from National Geographic http://bit.ly/1IwdLxC

California 'rain debt' equal to average full year of precipitation


The body and the brain: Impact of mental, physical exertion on fatigue development


Organic molecules on comets: Philae's first results from Churi prove surprising


Paralyzed men move legs with new non-invasive spinal cord stimulation


An exceptional planetary system discovered in Cassiopeia


Robotic insect mimics Nature's extreme moves


Stars in Milky Way have moved


The bold and the shy one: Could woodlice have personalities?


Ants in the lead: How ants cooperate in steering food to their nest


The bold and the shy one: Could woodlice have personalities?


Ants in the lead: How ants cooperate in steering food to their nest


Frosty Gullies on the Northern Plains of Mars


Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Passing By

Passionate ski mountaineer and Peter Svoboda loves minimalist compositions in his winter-themed mountain photography. Svoboda saw this scene unfold from about a mile away on the summit of Kreuzkogel in the Austrian Alps. “The angle of [the] slope ... and [the] afternoon sun created rather attractive shapes at first sight,” he writes. “I was waiting on the top of the mountain and took some pictures with the lonely tree. But it was not enough for me.” After he’d photographed a group of skiers who were enjoying the deep powder, this lone figure “was like icing on the cake,” he writes. “The mood was there.”



from National Geographic http://bit.ly/1LSiRoS

Can we restart the heart?


Evolutionary link between diet, stomach acidity


Meet the high-performance single-molecule diode


Tiny grains of rice hold big promise for greenhouse gas reductions, bioenergy


'Failed stars' host powerful auroral displays


Dense star clusters shown to be binary black hole factories


Brain surgery saved Russian general who helped defeat Napoleon: Scientists 'rewrite' history books


World's first white lasers demonstrated


Secrets of stars unlocked through aluminium


Stressed out plants send animal-like signals


First detection of lithium from an exploding star


Africa and Europe from a Million Miles Away


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Painting With Land

Terraced rice fields are seen from above in Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam. Rice is one of the country’s key exports.



from National Geographic http://bit.ly/1KwXnPD

Research grasps how brain plans gripping motion


Chimpanzees binge on clay to detox and boost the minerals in their diet


World's first bilateral hand transplant on child


Practice doesn't always make perfect (depending on your brain)


Pygmies show growth plasticity is key to human evolution


Early evidence suggests hybrid cochlear implants may benefit millions with common form of hearing loss


Origins of life: New model may explain emergence of self-replication on early Earth


Washington, DC sinking fast, adding to threat of sea-level rise


Plant light sensors came from ancient algae


Dinos with bite: Unique tooth structure allowed predatory dinosaurs to efficiently crunch flesh and bone


Round of Testing Completed on Webb Telescope Flight Mirrors


Arrow of time: New understanding of causality, free choice, and why we remember the past but not the future


Monday, July 27, 2015

The People’s Pope

At a general audience in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, Pope Francis rides in a popemobile without the protection of bulletproof glass. The pontiff wandered freely when he was a cardinal in Buenos Aires but cannot do so in Rome for his own safety.

See more pictures from the August 2015 feature story “Will the Pope Change the Vatican?”




from National Geographic http://bit.ly/1Kv6flW

In CRISPR advance, scientists successfully edit human T cells


Dust pillars of destruction reveal impact of cosmic wind on galaxy evolution


Quantum networks: Back and forth are not equal distances!


Neural efficiency hypothesis confirmed


Twin volcanic chains above a single hotspot with distinct roots


Activity at Klyuchevskoy Volcano


Babies' brains show that social skills linked to second language learning


Mum’s the word: Maternal language has strong effect on children's social skills