1. Awwww! Baby Bison
A new bison calf born this summer at the Bronx zoo is a hopeful sign for the iconic American species, which was almost hunted to extinction, but is now making a resurgence.
Very few herds of purebred bison remain in North America. Two of these herds live in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park, but breeding them outside the park has proven difficult, until now.
2. Dinosaur Art
Dinosaurs, the mystical and often fierce giants that once roamed planet Earth, seem to come alive in the minds of many a child. It was this imagination that led one young dino enthusiast to attempt to bring these paleo-beasts to life through his science-based illustrations.
Steve White, a British comic books editor and paleoartist, has been drawing dinosaurs since he was young. This "childhood fixation," as he calls it, never left him. The latest manifestation is his new book, "Dinosaur Art: The World's Greatest Paleoart" (Titan Books, Sept. 2012). LiveScience caught up with White to find out what drives him and the amazing artists portrayed in the book, some of whom are also scientists, as well as what he sees as the future of drawing dinosaurs and ancient mammals.
3. Black Hole Bonanza
A jackpot of previously unknown black holes across the universe has been discovered by the infrared eyes of a prolific NASA sky-mapping telescope.
The cosmic find comes from data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey (WISE) telescope, which scanned the entire sky in infrared light from December 2009 to February 2011. The full catalogue of observations by WISE during its mission was publicly released in March, and astronomers are still poring through this celestial trove for discoveries.
4. Billowing Belt of Venus
Giant trees cloaked in snow stand guard as the atmospheric blush known as the belt of Venus glows in the background of this surreal skywatching photo.
5. Space Sugar
What a sweet cosmic find! Sugar molecules have been found in the gas surrounding a young sun-like star, suggesting that some of the building blocks of life may actually be present even as alien planets are still forming in the system.
The young star, called IRAS 16293-2422, is part of a binary (or two-star) system. It has a similar mass to the sun and is located about 400 light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus. The sugar molecules, known as glycolaldehyde, have previously been detected in interstellar space, but according to the researchers, this is the first time they have been spotted so close to a sun-like star.
6. Dinosaur's Last Meal
Dinosaur fossils found with the bones of birds and small dinosaurs in their stomachs reveal the beasts may have been adept hunters capable of downing prey more than a third their own size, researchers say.
Fossils are occasionally found with the remains of animals and plants inside what were once their guts. These tummy contents can shed light on what they once ate - for instance, past research showed a mammal predator apparently had a tiny dinosaur as its last meal.
7. Chimps' Secret Handshakes
Chimpanzees that engage in unusual hand-holding behaviour during grooming may be showing off a little culture, new research suggests.
These chimp handshakes, which are seen only among some of the primates, seem to differ from group to group in ways that aren't dependent on genetics or environment. That leaves cultural differences between groups as a possible explanation for why and how the hand-holding occurs.
8. Tatooine Planets Found
Astronomers have for the first time discovered two alien planets whirling around a pair of stars: a complete solar system with twin suns just like Luke Skywalker's fictional home world Tatooine.
Most stars like our sun are not singletons, but rather come in pairs that orbit each other. Scientists had found planets in these binary systems, so-called circumbinary planets with two suns like Tatooine in the "Star Wars" universe.
9. Hubble Treasures
Swirling galaxies, glowing nebulas and shimmering stars: these are the winners in a public contest to unearth beautiful images from the horde of unprocessed data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The gorgeous pictures many of us associate with the Hubble Space Telescope don't come fully formed as we see them. In fact, the famous photos are the product of significant work on the part of scientists who sort through, process and transform the raw data into photogenic form. But Hubble collects so much data that researchers can only process a certain amount of it into aesthetic beauty. The rest is used for scientific study, but remains visually lacklustre.
10. Panda Pee
Wild giant pandas are endangered loners that roam remote bamboo forests in the mountains of China. When the bears actually want to find each other - typically during their short mating window - it's important that they pick the perfect place to leave their scent.
So what qualities do peeing pandas look for in a tree? Researchers say bark roughness helps the pandas' scent carry, while a large width makes for an easier target to aim at, especially for male pandas spraying urine in a handstand.
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