Here's what someone who loses $150,000 to a Nigerian scam artist looks like:
Here is some terrific video of a bioluminescent deep-sea siphonophore — an eerily fantastic creature that appears to be a single, large organism, but which is actually a colony of numerous individual jellyfish-like animals that behave and function together as a single entity. The individual units, called zooids, all share the same genetic material and each perform a specialized role within the colony. The best-known siphonophore is the poisonous Portuguese Man o’ War (Physalia physalis), which lives at the surface of the ocean, unlike the one shown in this video (filmed at a depth of 770 meters). Some siphonophore species can grow up to 40 meters (130 ft) in length.
via Pink Tentacle
From time immemorial, societies have sought to establish a lasting presence on this planet that would remind latecomers of their glory long after they themselves have abandoned ship and turned to dust. It doesn’t always work out the way we plan, however. These sobering examples of post-apocalyptic art remind the living that what remains are more often ruins of abandoned places, towns and cities.
More pictures on WebUrbanist
High on the Rotterdam Weena Tower, Benjamin Verdonck is nesting. Literally. Here’s a strange art project called "the Great Swallow" involving a nest, a man, and a giant egg
A nest is hanging high from the Rotterdam Weena Tower. Feathers fly around it. There’s a man in the nest. He nested there only four days ago. He stretches his arms out wide open, as if he wants to fly. But it also seems like he is trying to stay upright (losing his feathers). Some people even think that the man wants to embrace them.
Here’s the YouTube video clip:
via Neatorama
Physicists at Indiana University have developed a promising new way to identify a possible abnormality in a fundamental building block of Einstein's theory of relativity known as "Lorentz invariance." If confirmed, the abnormality would disprove the basic tenet that the laws of physics remain the same for any two objects traveling at a constant speed or rotated relative to one another.
Full story on Science Daily
A university professor who is an expert in sound and a part-time DJ believes Stonehenge was created as a dance arena for listening to "trance-style" music.
Full story on The Telegraph
A movie of observations of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) over eight years from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.
A fly-through of Cas A based on the 3-D representation constructed from Chandra and Spitzer data.
The Milky Way came into unprecedented focus on Monday as astronomers released the sharpest infrared picture yet taken of the roiling furnace at the centre of galaxy. The new mosaic reveals massive filaments of gas as well as a new population of massive, rogue stars.
Full article and picture's description by Rachel Courtland on New Scientist
Gladiators are to return to Rome's most famous fight arena almost 2,000 years after their bloody sport last entertained Roman crowds, local authorities announced.
According to Umberto Broccoli, the head of archaeology at Rome's city council, 2009 will be a time for the five million people who visit the Colosseum each year to experience "the sights, sounds and smells" of ancient Rome.
Full story on Discovery News
Full story on New Scientist
Reconnaissance Orbiter is keeping an eye on the Phoenix lander, and took the above image of the landing site on Dec. 21, 2008. Phoenix, its heatshield, parachute and backshell are still visible on the Martian arctic plains, providing evidence that the spacecraft hasn't been covered with ice as of yet. Via the HiRISE Blog, scientists say the conditions are hazy and dark because summer is turning to autumn on Mars. They will keep imaging the site as long as there is enough light to see the lander.
Full story and more pictures on Universe Today
NASA invites you to send a virtual postcard to the Expedition 18 crew on the International Space Station. You can send a bit of Earth to the humanity's outpost in space.
As an amateur theoretical physicist, I know all about the principle that the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit in the universe. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s difficult to wrap my brain around this concept, but I accept that it’s true. Light not only travels really, really fast, it also travels at a constant speed, irrespective of the relative speed of an observer. Furthermore, any bit of matter that is in motion increases in mass as its speed increases, approaching infinite mass as it approaches the speed of light (and requiring, in theory, infinite energy to accelerate it to that speed). Taken together, this information rather strongly suggests that nothing can be made to travel faster than light. The details of the math and physics don’t fully make sense to me, even after reading the works of Einstein and several modern physicists. But then, these folks are professionals in the field whereas I am not; if they say that their long years of research lead them to conclude unhesitatingly that nothing can move faster than light, who am I to disagree?
But...
Read Joe Kissell's article on ITOTD
A 12-year-old girl from Moscow will see her artwork launch to space in March 2009 as the winner of an international contest to design an insignia for the next cosmonaut crew.Anna Chibiskova was honored on Monday at a ceremony held at Russia's mission control center outside Moscow, where her painting of a pair of hands supporting the Earth was revealed as the basis for the Soyuz TMA-14 crew's mission patch. Her art will be embroidered and sewn onto the spacesuits that the three cosmonauts will wear during their March 25 launch to the International Space Station.
Full story on CollectSPACE
The iconic national park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come.
Full story on Discovery News
