Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/G. Cassam-Chena?, J.Hughes
et al.; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/GBT/VLA/Dyer, Maddalena & Cornwell; Optical: Middlebury College/F. Winkler, NOAO/AURA/NSF/CTIO Schmidt & DSS
No Star Left Behind. The celestial wreckage of the brightest supernova in recorded history, which left no star in its wake.
Credit: Christopher C. Austin/Louisiana State University
Smaller Than a Dime, Frog Is World's Tiniest Vertebrate.Paedophryne amauensis has taken the top spot as the world's smallest vertebrate, with an average adult size of 7.7 millimeters in length, less than half the diameter of a U.S. dime.
Credit: Adeen Flinker/UC Berkeley
A Brain Wave Worth a Thousand Words. A network of electrodes connects to the brain’s hearing centers, allowing scientists to record activity while patients listen to different words. Each word generated its own unique pattern in the brain, allowing them to reconstruct what a patient heard just by analyzing brain activity.
Credit: Guek Hock Ping
New Species Discovered, Thanks to Flickr. The images of the new lacewing, which has a 30-millimeter wingspan, were taken in a forested park north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by an amateur photographer and then posted online. An entomologist randomly viewing the images noted the distinct pattern of veins in the insect’s wings, which sport black markings and two white spots (see image above), and suspected the creature was an undescribed species.
Credit: Heidi Halbwirth
The Secret of the Black Dahlia. Rare black dahlia get their color from high levels of anthocyanins, the pigments that—at lower levels—also give orange and red dahlias their colors.
Credit: David Ainley/H. T. Harvey & Associates
Killer Whales Working Harder for Lunch?. Mysterious disappearances may be due to fishing vessels that are targeting the same large Antarctic toothfish that the whales eat, forcing the animals to hunt across wider areas.
Credit: (Molecule, Left) Silvia Vignolini; (Plant, Right) Paula Rudall
The Bluest Fruit. Although it doesn’t contain any pigments, the tiny fruit Pollia condensata produces the brightest blue found in nature.
Credit: Griswold et al., ZooKeys
Giant-Clawed Spider Is a 'Cave Robber.' The newly discovered Trogloraptor, or "cave robber" spider is so unusual it belongs to an entirely new lineage. The creepy-crawly derives its name from both its home home habitat and remarkable claws!
