|  New Horizons' Final Look at Pluto's Odd Dark Spots (Photo)  | NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has captured its last and best photo of Pluto's four mysterious dark spots. The dark spots lie on Pluto's far side, which always faces the dwarf planet's largest moon, Charon. New Horizons won't be able to see the far side when it zooms through the Pluto system during its highly anticipated flyby on Tuesday morning (July 14), mission team members said.
| Read More » Anxious Brains Are Inherited, Study Finds The brain function that underlies anxiety and depression is inherited, a new study finds — but there is still plenty of space for experience and environment to reduce the risk of a full-blown mental disorder. Like humans, some young rhesus monkeys have what's called an "anxious temperament." Expose them to a mildly stressful situation, like being in a room with a stranger, and the monkeys will stop moving and stop vocalizing while their stress hormones skyrocket. Extremely shy children do the same, said Dr. Ned Kalin, a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Read More » Rare Fossils of 400-Million-Year-Old Sea Creatures Uncovered  | The Moroccan formation, known as the Fezouata Biota, holds some of the oldest known marine animals on Earth. A batch of horseshoe crab fossils show that the critters are about 25 million years older than was previously thought. What's more, the horseshoe crab fossils are incredibly complex, suggesting their ancestors evolved far earlier, said study lead researcher Peter Van Roy, a paleontologist at Yale University.
| Read More » 'Alice in Wonderland Syndrome' Caused by Acid Flashback  | Lewis Carroll's delightful children's novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" turns 150 this year. This syndrome, named in 1955 by British psychiatrist John Todd, has long been known to co-occur with some migraines. These perceptual distortions are the hallmark of Alice in Wonderland syndrome, so dubbed because Alice experiences some very similar symptoms during her journey through Wonderland in Lewis Carroll's tale.
| Read More » Spotted face of distant Pluto coming into focus  | By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is closing fast on an unexpectedly spotted Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored. From New Horizon's position more than 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) from Earth, radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, take nearly four and a half hours to reach the ground. Not that the probe, which has been traveling toward Pluto for more than nine years, is currently spending much time relaying back pictures and data from its seven science instruments.
| Read More » Comet team says lander gets back in touch with new data European scientists received data from the newly revived comet lander Philae on Thursday night, a boost to the team as they try to establish a secure line of communication for their historic scientific experiments on the surface of the comet. The European Space Agency landed Philae on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November, but the lander bounced and landed in a position too shadowy to power its solar panels. As the comet approached the sun, the lander surprised scientists by waking up and sending signals to Earth on June 13. Read More » A Brief History of Pluto Viewing: From Its Discovery to New Horizons Flyby  | Pluto has captured people's imagination for nearly a century. The frigid world at the solar system's outer reaches that was discovered in 1930 remains mysterious to this day: because Pluto is relatively small and so far away, telescopes on and near Earth haven't been able to take its measure. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is already getting good looks at Pluto, and will return history's first up-close photos of the dwarf planet during a July 14 flyby.
| Read More » | |
