The archives of Space.com have produced an old but strikingly weird story about a strikingly weird discovery – a second moon orbiting invisibly around Earth:

The 3-mile-wide (5-km) satellite, which takes 770 years to complete a horseshoe-shaped orbit around Earth, is called Cruithne and will remain in a suspended state around Earth for at least 5,000 years.

…

There are almost [...]

This is the aphis wolf, or aphid lion, or, in other words, either the larva of the much less-threateningly named ladybug or lacewing.

This particular one looks like it’s a lacewing, or Chrysoperia. But whether it grows up to be a cute little red beetle or a dainty green dragonfly-like bug, it’s a voracious eater of aphids. [...]

About two months ago, the BBC tells us, Scottish researchers used computer models to bring a lost medieval instrument back to life:

Bach’s motet (a choral musical composition) “O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht” was one of the last pieces of music written for the Lituus.

Now, for the first time, this 18th Century composition has been played as it [...]

The Australian Associated Press reports on a new move from the Catholic Church, which is offering a $100,000 research grant for work on adult stem cells:

The Sydney Archdiocese announced the grant on Wednesday, saying it is still vehemently opposed to embryonic stem cell research but approves of the use of adult stem cells.

Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell says [...]

Australian researchers have just discovered a trio of never-before-seen dinosaurs in the Winton Formation. Two of them died at the bottom of one of those boggy places known as billabongs. So, naturally, the staid scientists gave these majestic extinct creatures three goofy names:

Australovenator (Banjo), Diamantinasaurus (Matilda) and Wintonotitan (Clancy) are the first dinosaurs to be named in Queensland [...]

The New York Times reports on a German discovery – or, really, a whole set of discoveries – of Stone Age tools, sculptures and the oldest known flutes:

Dr. Conard, a professor of archaeology, said in an e-mail message from Germany that “the new flutes must be very close to 40,000 calendar years old and certainly date to the initial [...]

The BBC reports that the largest species of cat, the Amur tiger, has an effective population of less than 50 animals:

They sampled nuclear DNA found within the scat samples of an estimated 95 individuals found throughout the Amur tiger’s range, likely constituting up to 20% of the remaining population.

The study sampled the amount of variation within the DNA [...]

Click to embiggen vastly

This is Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons that might harbor life. That nearly geometric blue pattern on its surface is called “tiger striping,” and is a clue that there’s a liquid ocean sloshing around beneath the frozen surface – and occasionally shooting out massive geysers into space. It even seems like it’s salty, [...]

SONG: “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant. Originally by The Mountain Goats.

SOURCE: This is a penitential cover, recorded as penance for being late with that post-punk original this month. Well, the end of last month. There’s no specific scientific source. It’s from this album.

ABSTRACT: Metaphors [...]