Saturn’s “Great Hexagon” changes color with the seasons
NASA has published some images of Saturn’s geometrically fascinating north pole that show a new seasonal color scheme: …Scientists are investigating potential causes for the […]
Science Art: Psyche Spacecraft at the Asteroid Psyche, 2026
From the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio:
Read moreThis illustration depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Launched…
Science Art: Body-centered cubic (bcc) unit cell of iron, 2009
If you were curious about the crystalline structure of iron mentioned in the last post, here it is — a molecul…
Read moreScience Art: MOON: For the Benefit of Humanity, 2023
It’s a poster made by NASA for lunar exploration, showing some landers, space stations, and sample-taking equip…
Read moreScience Art: Bubble chamber with colour enhanced tracks, 2026
This is a CERN image from January 6, 2026, showing something that happened in the 1960s, but enhanced for 21st-…
Read moreScience Art: Dissection of Asterias rubens, by Hans Hillewaert.
Starfish anatomy.
If you want to know the parts, according to Dutch Wikipedia, they are:
Read moreLegend
1 Arm
2…
Science Art: Jupiter's Family of Comets, 1898
This is a diagram from A New Astronomy For Beginners, a textbook that’s about a century and a quarter old, or a…
Read moreVirus pirates black widow venom, uses it as weapon
New Scientist reports on some information-age piracy taking place in the microscopic realm, where viruses seem to have hijacked spider venom to attack bacteria: Viruses […]
The Rat Snacks of Skara Brae.
PhysOrg gives us a new perspective on rat remains found in 5,000-year-old settlements. They weren’t eating our scraps – we were eating *them*: The new […]
These mice were born from skin, not eggs. And were never in a womb.
Nature reports on a new technique that has successfully converted skin cells into fertile egg cells and brought babies to term without ever implanting them […]
Science Art: Belt Trick by Jason Hise
The belts always twist, but never get tangled. Geometry can be weird. If you find this hypnotic, check out what the same creator has done […]
You can’t un-boil egg. Or… hang on a minute!
Popular Science reveals a way in which you CAN un-boil an egg: When you boil an egg, the heat causes the proteins inside the egg […]
Virtually conquering Everest
Sports Illustrated is taking all of us along on a virtual-reality climb to the summit of Mt. Everest: Sports Illustrated will partner with Endemol Shine […]
Dinosaurs probably boomed instead of singing.
Science Daily looks into some really old larynxes (larynges?) with University of Texas, Austin, researchers and concludes dinosaurs, though bird-like, didn’t sing – they honked […]
“Goddess of the Yangzi” might not be extinct after all.
The Guardian has an optimistic story out of central China, with news that the baiji – the Yangzi River dolphin, one of the oldest aquatic […]
The Martian Timeshare
Nature gives us a new context for exploring Mars, with NASA landing a rugged rover or orbital observer equipped with “generic” scientific equipment so that […]
Science Art: GFS Model Forecasts Moisture over the Atlantic, Aug 2016
Click to embiggen You’d think after the week I’ve had, I’d be sick of looking at meteorological imagery. But no. This stuff is beautiful, and […]
Rescuing the seeds of Aleppo
Nature finds hope for the future in war-torn Syria, where a seed-bank dedicated to preserve our ancient plants (which could save our crops from climate […]
Dark matter is… doing something strange.
The Guardian and physicist Jon Butterworth are looking at something unexpected that the Spitzer Space Telescope has noticed. Galaxies are put together in a way […]
Re-remembering Robinson Crusoe.
Because, according to National Geographic, we didn’t remember him right the first time. Or at least we attribute a heck of a lot to the […]
Science Art: Aneroiddose für die Luftdruckkompensation des Pendels, by Sigmund Riefler
Click to embiggen Sigmund Riefler was a physicist and precision clockmaker. He also created this, a precision barometer, or, rather, a barometer connected to a […]