The transit of Venus on June 5, 2012, as seen from Langdon, North Dakota [USA].
Photo credit: KJS, Used with Permission
2. Hard-Hitting Claw
If sea creatures were Marvel comic book characters, the peacock mantis shrimp would be Thor. These colourful crustaceans have a hammer-like claw that can smash prey with the acceleration of a 0.22-calibre bullet - not unlike the superhero's mythological weapon.
Now, a new study reveals the secrets behind the strength of the mantis shrimp's claw at the molecular level. It turns out this appendage is ideally adapted to deliver punishing blow after punishing blow without breaking. These adaptations are already inspiring researchers to engineer biology-mimicking materials that could inspire everything from better boat propellers to safer body armour.
3. First Objects of Universe
New observations from a NASA space telescope have spotted what may be the very first objects created in the universe in unprecedented detail, scientists say.
The faint objects, imaged in infrared light by NASA's Spitzer space telescope, might be hugely massive stars or black holes, but are too distant to see individually.
The Big Bang is thought to have kick-started the universe about 13.7 billion years ago. At first, the universe was too hot and dense for particles to be stable, but then the first quarks formed, which then grouped together to make protons and neutrons, and eventually the first atoms were created. After about 500 million years, the first stars, galaxies and black holes began to take shape.
4. Seeing Double
Two populations of great white sharks frolicking in Australian waters may look alike, but researchers have found they are distinct genetically, a finding that has conservation implications.
"The genetic makeup of white sharks west of Bass Strait was different from those on the eastern seaboard of Australia, despite the lack of any physical barrier between these regions," said John Pandolfi, a chief investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, The University of Queensland.
5. Tie-Dyed Vesta
A new video from a NASA spacecraft shows the huge asteroid Vesta's complex surface in dazzling and colourful detail.
The video drapes high-resolution false colour images snapped by NASA's Dawn probe over a 3-D model of Vesta constructed from the spacecraft's observations. Dawn has been orbiting Vesta - at 330 miles (530 kilometres) wide the second-largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter - since last July.
6. Thunderclouds, Texas Style!
An ominous cloud formation that developed in the Texas [USA] panhandle last week looks like a CGI effect straight out of a summer blockbuster. This tornadic thunderstorm, which formed near the town of Adrian during the evening of May 21 and gave rise to at least one twister, offered passers-by with video cameras an exceptional view of nature's might.
Experts say the saucer-shaped cloud was the most severe type of thunderstorm: a supercell. "What you are seeing here is a well-developed rotating supercell thunderstorm, and the condensation pattern at cloud base forms a 'belt' or 'wall' appearance as air is lifted and sucked into the swirling storm," said Chris Walcek, a meteorologist at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York, Albany.
[Note: Some of the images/stories from the original article are not shown because they have been displayed here and here.]
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